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FIGHTING
MACHINE

flriiw

Too o o oaf

712

1914

ERNEST-
HENDERSON

Presented to the

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
LIBRARY

by the

ONTARIO LEGISLATIVE
LIBRARY

1980

GERMANY'S FIGHTING MACHINE

Kaiser Wilhelm II

GERMANY'S * - - • «
FIGHTING MACHINE

Her Army, Her Navy, Her Air-ships, and

Why She Arrayed Them Against the

Allied Powers of Europe

ERNEST F. HENDERSON

Author of

SHORT HISTORY OF GERMANY

HISTORY OF GERMANY IN THE MIDDLE AGES

BLUCHER, ETC., ETC.

lTH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS

INDIANAPOLIS

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

CHARLES FRANCIS PRESS, NEW YORK

GERMANY'S FIGHTING MACHINE

GERMANY'S
FIGHTING MACHINE

PART I

THE WAR

BUT a few weeks ago the author of this little book
was in Germany studying the land and its institutions
and full of admiration for its achievements in every
field. Two days after he had taken ship for America
Germany was practically at war with France and Rus-
sia. England soon joined in the conflict, and the splen-
did Hamburg liner on which the author was a passenger
was a hunted thing on the ocean, owing her safety at
last to a friendly fog. The great shipping company,
with its nearly two hundred vessels, was out of the run-
ning as a commercial enterprise, a symbol of the para-
lyzed industries of the whole country.

To the ordinary observer the conflict came like a bolt
from the blue, but to the historian and to the man who
reads the foreign newspapers it was not unexpected.
The historians recognized that it was the appointed time

for a war between the great nations. The Franco-
Prussian War took place forty-three years ago. When,
since the days of the grandsons of Charlemagne, have
the chief powers kept out of war for so long a time ? In
the ninth and tenth centuries the question of Lorraine
was as troublesome as it has been in the nineteenth and
twentieth; in the eleventh and twelfth an expedition
against Italy was in the day's work of almost every
German emperor; and England and Sicily were con-
quered by the Normans; in 1215 took place the first gen-
eral international battle; in 1250 the final expeditions
against the Emperor Frederick II; in 1272 the Sicilian
wars of the house of Anjou. The Guelphs and Ghibel-
lines carry us on to the Hundred Years' War ; the Haps-
burg struggles against Italy and the Turks bring us
down to the invasion of Italy by Charles VIII of
France, to the campaigns of Maximilian, to the Field
of the Cloth of Gold, to the religious wars of Charles V.
Close on the heels of the latter struggles came not only
the French religious wars but the invasion of England
by Philip II's great armada, The Thirty Years' War,
Louis XIV's war of conquest, the Spanish Succession,
the Silesian and the Seven Years' Wars fill the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries; the Napoleonic, Cri-
mean and Franco-Prussian Wars the nineteenth. Yes,
it was time for a new struggle.

THE WAR a

When a great and extraordinary event takes place it
is easy, somewhere in the world, to point to omens and
prophecies that have heralded it. But in the case of the
present war we can see in the German newspapers how,
from month to month of the present year, the struggle
was felt to be more and more imminent and how Russia,
the power that eventually precipitated the catastrophe,
was felt to be the center of real danger. "In well-
informed diplomatic circles," writes the Magdeburger
Zeitung in January, 1914, "the impression can not be
concealed that in Russia at present there prevails a thor-
oughly hostile attitude to Germany and Austria-Hun-
gary, and that the agitation in the czar's realm is greater
even than during the last Balkan crisis. ... It looks
as though Russia were preparing to make an extraordi-
narily great show of strength against a specific, not far
distant date." And the Deutsche Tageszeitung: "What
is Russia's purpose in building a mighty fleet of dread-
naughts for the Baltic? Surely not merely to coerce
Sweden." Again the Madgeburg paper: "The Russian
government, which already owes French capitalists
twelve billions, has received a new loan of two billions
five hundred millions, of which five million are yearly to
be issued in Paris. This whole gigantic sum is exclu-
sively to be spent for building strategic railways along
the German-Russian boundary. . . . France com-

4 GERMANY'S FIGHTING MACHINE

pelled Russia to do this. The French general staff
thinks that Russia, because of her clumsiness in mobil-
izing, but especially for lack of tracks leading to the
German frontier, will not be able, in a new war with
Germany, to bring help to France in time. Russia has
now fulfilled France's wishes in this regard. Thus does
the Franco-Russian alliance, which of late seemed to be
falling into oblivion, celebrate its resurrection."

In February the Hallesche Zeitung writes : "To keep
friendship with Russia is one of the chief aims of our
foreign policy, but it is sometimes made very hard for
us indeed. . . . They keep the peace because it is to
the advantage of the czar's empire to do so ; but they are
to be had for every combination directed against Ger-
many." And the Dresdener Nachrichten: "The Rus-
sian-German relations leave very much to be desired at
the moment. The Russian government fails to show the
least approachableness in foreign questions and Russian
society and the press are in an extremely anti-German
mood. Evidences of the same thing are to be seen in
their attitude to Austria. . . . The Russian policy
lets itself be taken more and more in tow by the French
desires, and has nothing but polite speeches left for
Germany." The Weser Zeitung finds the explanation
of the hostility in Germany's efforts to help the Turks
reorganize their army, and declares, "Here we have

The Crown Prince and Crown Princess

Prince Henry of Prussia, the Emperor's Brother

THE WAR 5

touched one of the weakest spots in Russia's world-
policy, her endeavor to get to the Mediterranean." The
Frdnkische Kurier thinks that Russia intends to form
a protectorate over the Balkan states as a military
weapon against Austria and her allies: "The soul of
this endeavor is the Russian diplomacy and the Servian
minister-president, Pasitsch." The Dresdener Anzeiger
observes that the influence of the Pan-Slavist party over
the Russian government is steadily growing and that
the extraordinary activity in military matters ill suits
the constant peace assurances: "The measures are
pointed against Austria-Hungary."

On March second an article in the Kolnische Zeitung
aroused great excitement all over Germany. It declared
that Russia was not yet in a position to supplement po-
litical threats by military action, however much France
might "rattle with the Russian saber." But in three
years all the enormous preparations would be completed,
and already "it is openly said even in official military
periodicals, that Russia is arming for war against Ger-
many." There is no immediate danger, the article con-
tinued, but the legend of the historical German-Russian
friendship had better be thrown to the dogs.

The papers took different attitudes toward this arti-
cle, but there were not wanting those who considered the
warnings of the Kolnische Zeitung justified. General

6 GERMANY'S FIGHTING MACHINE

Keim, in the Tag, declares that the German-Russian
boundary is one huge camp, that the underlying thought
of the whole armament is an offensive war against Ger-
many, that France had proceeded in the same way just
before 1870 and that the recent visit to St. Petersburg
of President Poincare and his chief of staff Joffre had
not been merely a pleasure jaunt. Had not a French
general, only last summer, declared in a treatise pub-
lished anonymously that the tension between Russia and
Austria was ground for a European war "perhaps in
the near future"? And had not this French officer even
gone so far as to spread the legend that in case of war
Germany would disregard the neutrality of Belgium
and Luxemburg in order to be able to envelop the
French left wing?

Several of the March newspapers bring the Russian
hostility into connection with the commercial treaty that
has only about two years more to run. Russia, by mak-
ing a bold front, can gain from Germany better terms
than she has had in the past. "Russia, with her military
preparations," writes the Pester Lloyd, "wishes to put
Austria and Germany under military pressure in order
to achieve diplomatic successes and harm her neighbors
economically." The idea that France is behind it all
crops out repeatedly. The Neue Preussische Zeitung
speaks of the pressure "ever stronger, that the French

need for revenge is exercising on the Russian ally and
debtor." The Hannoverische Courier accuses the
French press of having first caused the agitation of
public opinion in Russia, on which it afterward com-
ments as so remarkable. As far back as March 10th,
1913, the Kolnische Zeitung had written: "Never was
our relation to our western neighbor so strained as to-
day, never has the idea of vengeance shown itself so
openly and never has it been made so evident that in
France the Russian alliance, the English friendship, are
claimed only for the purpose of reconquering Alsace-
Lorraine. In whatever corner of the world the flame
starts up it is quite certain that we shall have to cross
swords with France. When that will be, no one can telL"
The Russian military preparations cause the German
papers much concern in the month of April also. The
Vossische Zeitung considers them a gigantic bluff, and
declares that they have been worth millions to the Rus-
sian government. "For only because France thinks
that in Russia she possesses an ally ready for war has
she heaped billions and billions on her in the form of
loans. . . . That the latest French loans to Russia
were accompanied by instructions seriously to take up
the anti- Austrian and anti-German preparations no one
doubts. Just as little is it doubted that Pan-Slavism is
not pleased with the latest changes in the Balkans or that

8 GERMANY'S FIGHTING MACHINE

the freedom of the Dardanelles and the seizure of Con-
stantinople still present themselves as the goal of Rus-
sian policy. Hatred of the Germans is increasing.
. . . One thing is certain: Russia is arming to a gi-
gantic extent. She wishes to throw a heavy weight into
the scale of the national quarrels. Germany and Aus-
tria have every reason to be on their guard." The
Allgemeine Zeitung, of Chemnitz, writes that "The
goals of French and Russian policy are unattainable
without world-shattering callings-to-account," and the
Weser Zeitung, after speaking of Pan-Slavism as
threatening the existence of the Austrian-Hungarian
monarchy, finally exclaims, "It neither can nor should
be concealed that if — which God forbid! — this direction
gain the upper hand in Russian politics it would mean
the very war-danger against which we sought and found
refuge in the Triple Alliance."

The newspapers of May have a somewhat calmer
tone than those of March and April. "There is, to be
sure," writes the Tag, "danger for peace in the possibil-
ity that the anti-German tendency in Russia may prove
so strong that the government will not be able to check
it. Another danger lies in the relations of Russia and
Austria. . . . Although there is much talk to the ef-
fect that we shall once more be compelled to fight for our
national existence, it is not absolutely necessary that

The Unworldly Kaiserin as the Protectress of the Fatherless

Princess Victoria Louise, the Emperor's Only Daughter

THE WAR 9

such a war shall come." On the other hand, Admiral
Breusing, in the Tdgliche Rundschau of May the sev-
enth, writes: "The striving of the Slavic and Mongo-
lian races to extend their power and possessions will
surely lead to an encounter with the German race." The
Rheinisch-W estphdlische Zeitung declares of France
that "public sentiment in military and political circles
has long gone over from the defensive to the offensive.
Apparently the aim is to create a situation where Ger-
many will have to choose between receding or attack-
ing." The Dresdener Anzeiger, too, thinks that the "re-
lations between Germany and France give the key to
the grouping of the European powers," and the Berliner
Tageblatt says, "The future and salvation of Europe
and its culture lies solely in a German-French-English
rapprochement; that alone will guarantee the world-
peace." Toward the end of the month the Dresdener
Anzeiger writes: "The German-Russian relations have
latterly taken a remarkable change for the worse. Cer-
tainly the nationalistic elements in Russia are once more
conspicuously active. . . . Should the whole mass of
the Russian people once become conscious of its nation-
ality the world will see the most mighty movement both
as regards extent and elemental intensity. . . . For
Russia, Pan-Slavism is the idea of the Russian leader-
ship over all Slavs."

10 GERMANY'S FIGHTING MACHINE

Already in May, more than two months before there
is a sign that the conflict is at hand, doubts begin to be
expressed whether Italy's alliance would be of any value
in case of war. The Berlin Neueste Nachrichten has to
acknowledge that as far as Austria is concerned the alli-
ance is "more a matter of the intellect than of the heart ;"
while the Rheinisch-W estphdlische Zeitung reports on
May twelve that "in more than ten years such a sense-
less agitation against Austria has not been seen in
Italy. . . . The Italian government is by no means
master of the difficult situation in which it is placed
by the demonstrations of protest against Austria-Hun-
gary. . . . Were war to break out to-day the easily
excited Italian people would compel any government
of theirs , however friendly to the Triple Alliance., to
declare against Austria-Hungary"

The nearer we approach to the crisis the more serious
is the situation regarded by the better newspapers. The
Neue Preussische Zeitung in June tells of the surpris-
ing spirit of sacrifice there is in France and of the quiet
efforts that are being made to strengthen the army: "If
the revenge cries have almost ceased that does not in the
least mean that the idea has been given up ; on the con-
trary, they already reckon on the war as on a sure thing."
Of the Russian military preparations, the Vienna Neue
Freie Presse writes on June twelve : "About two months

THE WAR 11

ago it became known that Russia had set aside two hun-
dred sixteen million kronen (a krone is about a franc)
for military exercises and especially for a 'trial-mobili-
zation.' The great amount of this sum will be realized
when one remembers that Austria spends about ten mil-
lions for all of its military exercises put together. Un-
der the harmless title of 'trial-mobilization' and the still
more harmless one of 'exercises for the reserves' Russia,
then, for a period of six weeks, is placing its giant army
practically on a war- footing. Think of 1,800,000 men
holding military exercises at a time when Austria has
200,000, Germany from 300,000 to 400,000 trained men
at her immediate disposal ! Whether it be intentional or
not this implies so imminent a threat that the neighbors
will need the greatest 'cold-bloodedness' to allow these
'military exercises' to pass without friction. These ex-
ercises signify the most colossal endangering of the
peace that was ever attempted under the form of a
periodically recurring measure of organization,, and it
would not be surprising if all those who long for a
peaceful turn of political affairs were to be completely
embittered. . . . To add to this dark aspect comes
the relatively enormous credit demanded by the Servian
military administration — 123,000,000. It is as much in
proportion as though Austria were to demand a billion
and a half. Since 1908 Servia has been arming uninter-

ruptedly, and now again spends this sum on military
purposes the tendency of which practically amounts to
a direct threatening of her neighbors." The Hallesche
Zeitung on the twenty-third of June discusses the vari-
ous alliances: "Originally the Russian-French alliance
was a military convention, in the last few months there
has been added a naval agreement. It is desired to enter
with united forces into the great decisive struggle for
the division of the world. Russia wants elbow-room as
far as the North Atlantic Ocean and the Southern Bal-
tic, besides free entry into the Mediterranean."

I have quoted all these newspaper extracts because
they seem to me absolutely indicative of the sentiment
that prevailed in Germany just before the war broke
out, whether that sentiment be based on correct impres-
sions or not. We have the Russian side of it in an ar-
ticle written by Professor Maxim Kowaleski, for the
Frankfurter Zeitung: "In Russia people believe that
Germany and Austria are arming against Russia, in
Germany and Austria they take for granted that the
opposite is the case."

To the unprejudiced observer it looks very much as
though Servia, thinking her hour had come and feeling
sure of Russia's support, had instigated the murder of
the heir to the Austrian throne with the deliberate inten-
tion of starting a great conflagration. The preliminary

General von Heeringen

General von Eichhorn

General von Billow

General von Prittwitz

THE WAR 13

inquiry into the matter, which was carried on very de-
liberately by Austria, with no sensational charges or
accusations, revealed a great plot reaching to the very
steps of the Servian throne. Around that throne, as the
world well knows, were the men who had deliberately
murdered their own previous king and queen and who
had been rewarded with high positions for their share in
that dark transaction. It was proved to Austria's satis-
faction— and she had so much to lose by a war of ag-
gression that no ulterior motive could have influenced
her — that the royal Servian arsenal had provided the
weapons of death and that a high official in the army had
been directly concerned. Servia's attitude during the
preliminary investigation had been provocative. Then
Austria hurled her ultimatum.

It was an unheard-of ultimatum — that much an Aus-
trian friend acknowledged to me at the time. But, he
added, the whole situation was equally unheard of. In
Germany, except in the ranks of the social democrats,
who glory in having no national sentiments, Austria's
act met with the most complete approval. Truth to tell,
no one had expected such firmness and decision. The
seriousness of the matter was not for a moment over-
looked. In my own immediate neighborhood and, I
imagine, from end to end of Germany, the first impulse
on hearing the news was to sing national hymns. One

14 GERMANY'S FIGHTING MACHINE

heard them throughout that whole night — especially the
solemn "Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser" and "Deutsch-
land, Deutschland uber alles" There was a resigned
feeling, too, a feeling that Servia had been such a men-
ace since 1908 that the time had come when something
must be done. My Austrian friend believed that the
powers would sympathize with his country's desire to
chastise a band of assassins ; that the Russian czar espe-
cially would never take sides with regicides ; that Eng-
land would see fair play.

To blame the German emperor for what followed is
the attitude of the uninformed. Germany has foreseen
the struggle, as our extracts from the newspapers show,
but her one idea has been self-defense. The worst that
can be said of her is that her wonderful prosperity has
made her a little boastful and that she has talked too
much about her share in world politics and her own
"place in the sun." That indeed was an unfortunate
remark of his imperial majesty. In general, however,
he has honestly tried to keep the peace, and that Ger-
many, with her blooming trade, her model educational
system and her splendid fleet and army should have a
larger voice in the affairs of nations was not an unrea-
sonable aim. Those who accuse her of greed for terri-
tory should look at the history of their own country and
see if they are entitled to throw stones. Nor should they

THE WAR 15

attribute her recent army-increase to a mere spirit of
aggression. So hemmed in is Germany, so exposed are
her frontiers in every direction, that she can not help
taking alarm at the movements of her neighbors. Ac-
tually touching her borders are nations with a total pop-
ulation more than doubling her own, not to speak of
England with her enormous fleet.

England of late has stood for the restriction of arma-
ments provided her own naval superiority be preserved
in the present proportions. Germans believe, probably
falsely, that before making such a proposition England
hastily ordered the laying of the keels of three new bat-
tle-ships which in the ordinary course of events would not
have been begun until later. At any rate England leads
in the matter of supplying other countries with deadly
instruments of war and her attitude is not unlike that of
her own rich beer-brewing families to the temperance
question. They preach against the use of alcohol, but
go on deriving their income from it. The largest fac-
tory of Whitehead torpedoes is at Fiume, in Austria;
Armstrong and Vickers have branches in Italy and sup-
ply that government with naval guns ; while the British
Engineers' Association, with a capital of $350,000,000,
is endeavoring to corner the trade of the world in fire-
arms. England introduced dreadnaughts and not only
builds them for herself but also furnishes them on de-

16 GERMANY'S FIGHTING MACHINE

niand to Japan and South America. With a cannon
factory on the Volga and an arsenal equipped by Arm-
strong and Vickers on the Golden Horn, England has
fairly fattened of late on war. By building the first
dreadnaught, indeed, she did herself a poor service.
Previously Germany was out of the running as regards
the number of ships; now, where only dreadnaughts
count, she is becoming a good second. Was there not
something more than naivete in Sir Edward Grey's
serious proposal that Germany and England should re-
strict the number of their battle-ships but always pre-
serve the proportion of ten to six in England's favor?
We have here, I think, the whole gist of the differences
between the two countries. England has steadily pre-
served her attitude of superiority everywhere its basis
was disappearing. She has been jealous of Germany's
commerce, of her colonial progress. These Germans are
to England upstarts who need to be kept in their place
and are not to be allowed to have a word in the larger
world-policies. Almost every Englishman feels that a
German is his social inferior. Such assumptions pro-
voke bumptiousness and self-assertion, which, I do not
deny, have at times been evidenced. Just before this
war broke out, indeed, the feeling of mutual antagonism
seemed to be lessening. The English fleet was wel-

The Kaiser with the Biirgemeister of Aix-la-Chapelle on the Balcony of the Town Hall

The Emperor at Maneuvers

Duke Albert of Wiirttemberg

Prince Rnpprecht of Bavaria

Grand Duke Frederick II of Baden

THE WAR 17

corned at Kiel, the English trade delegation in Berlin.
The press of both countries had softened and sweetened.
As for England's present alliance with Russia against
Germany, it is the most monumental act of folly in
modern history. Has Britannia been attacked by sclero-
sis? At home a maudlin sentiment keeps her from en-
forcing obedience to her laws and abroad she allows her
real enemies to pull her about by the nose. It is as
though in the middle ages a Henry or an Edward had
joined hands with a Genghis Khan or a Timour the Tar-
tar. Can England gain anything whatever by humili-
ating Germany and furthering Pan-Slavism? A little
commercial advantage, possibly, though America will
be correspondingly strengthened and the final result will
be no better. Britannia, wake up! It is less far from
the Mediterranean to the Atlantic than it is from the
Black Sea to the Mediterranean. Gibraltar will soon be
as irksome to Pan- Slavism as are now the forts on the
Dardanelles. Your own race is made up mainly of
Angles and Saxons — all your ideals, all your real in-
terests are far closer to those of the Germans than they
are to those of the Russians. The time may come, and
very soon, when you are only too glad to throw yourself
around Germany's neck and beg her aid in opposing the
hordes from the East. In Russia's wake are your allies,

the Japanese, who now for the first time have taken a
hand in European affairs. Japan has been likened by
a bright American girl to a man who has never been in-
vited to dinner in certain circles but who at last has in-
vited himself and simply can not be turned out of the
house.

Germany, though drawn into the matter merely by
the plain terms of her alliance with Austria, stands vir-
tually alone, for Italy is faithless and Austria, as usual,
is only half prepared. We may see a recurrence of
those exciting days when for seven years Frederick the
Great of Prussia — of a Prussia less than half the size
that it is now — held his own not only against the great
powers of Europe but against the rest of Germany as
well. The help that he had from England was not
greater than may be expected from Austria to-day, and
even the English deserted him at last. Again and again
Frederick risked, even as our contemporary Hohenzol-
lern is likely to do, le tout pour le tout. And like Fred-
erick, I think that William, because of better equip-
ment, better discipline and better strategy, is likely to
prevail even over the many millions arrayed against him.

England to-day throws the whole blame for the ter-
rible war on Germany, who was lukewarm, so England
declares, in counseling Austria not to let her strained
relations with Servia develop into war; and in the Eng-

THE WAR 19

lish press at least there are no words too scathing for the
violation by Germany of Belgium neutrality. The av-
erage Englishman, I am sure, considers that the reason
for England joining in the struggle. Yet what are we
to think of Sir Edward Grey's own words in the "Cor-
respondence respecting the European Crisis" laid before
the Houses of Parliament and received here from Lon-
don August twenty-fifth.

July 31. — The German ambassador asked me to urge the Russian
government to show good-will in the discussions and to suspend their
military preparations. ... I informed the German ambassa-
dor that, as regards military preparations, I did not see how Russia
could be urged to suspend them unless some limit were put by
Austria to the advance of her troops into Servia.

August 1. — I told the German ambassador to-day ... if
there were a violation of the neutrality of Belgium by one combatant
while the other respected it it would be extremely difficult to restrain
public feeling in this country. . . . He asked me whether, if
Germany gave a promise not to violate Belgium neutrality, we would
engage to remain neutral. I replied that I could not say that. . . .
The ambassador pressed me as to whether I could not formulate con-
ditions on which we would remain neutral. He even suggested that
the integrity of France and her colonies might be guaranteed. I
said that I felt obliged to refuse definitely any promise to remain
neutral on similar terms, and I could only say that we must keep
our hands free.

So England, directly from the first, took sides with
Servia in a matter that concerned only Servia and Aus-
tria. She "could not see how Russia could be urged to

20 GERMANY'S FIGHTING MACHINE

suspend preparations" and would not, even for the sake
of Belgium, state the terms on which she would agree
to remain neutral in the new German-Russian mobiliza-
tion dispute. Why Germany finally did violate Belgian
neutrality is explained by a telegram from the German
foreign office to the German ambassador in London,
Prince Lichnowsky, on August four. ... "Please
impress upon Sir E. Grey that German army could not
be exposed to French attack across Belgium, which was
planned according to absolutely unimpeachable infor-
mation. Germany had consequently to disregard Bel-
gian neutrality, it being for her a question of life or
death to prevent French advance."

All eyes then are likely for the next few months to
be fixed on the German army and it has seemed worth
while to me hastily to collect and publish all the items
concerning the land, naval and aerial forces that will be
of general interest in America. No one will look, I
hope, for much originality in a work of this kind. My
information is taken from Major von Schreibersho fen's
excellent book Das deutsche HeerJ from Colonel von
Bremen's Das deutsche Heer nach der Neuordnung
von 1913; from Lieutenant Neumann's LuftscMffe and
his Flugzeuge; from Count Reventlow's interesting
Deutschland zur See; Troetsch's DeutscJiland's Flotte
im Entscheidungskampf and Toeche-Mittler : Die

THE WAR 21

deutsche Kriegsflotte. The three last mentioned works,
and also Von Bremen's, are absolutely new, having been
published in 1914; Schreibershofen's dates from 1913.
The two others have no date but one can see that they
have appeared very recently. The large new works
Das Jahr 1913, Deutschland unter Kaiser Wilhelm II,
and the Handbuch der Politik have also been of use to
me. For the last six months I have followed very care-
fully in the Zeitungs-Archiv all the newspaper extracts
bearing on our subject. The war has doubtless inter-
rupted the publication of the Archiv, so that I shall re-
main "up to date" for some little time to come.

PART II

THE ARMY

THE great military authority, Bernhardi, in an article
in Das Jalir 1913, points out various ways in which mili-
tary science has developed since the Franco-Prussian
War and showrs how completely we have had to abandon
many of the conceptions gained by a study of earlier
campaigns. Responsible in the main for the changes are
the increased size of the armies and the new technical
inventions of our age.

Almost all the states of continental Europe have gone
over to the principle of universal military service, with
the result that the armies are greater now in time of
peace than ever before in time of war, and that when
mobilization is called for and the reserves are summoned,
the number of men in the field amounts to millions. The
first result has been that far other means of transporting
and concentrating such masses have to be employed than
used to be the case and that networks of railroads have
had to be built for purely strategic purposes. In the
maneuvers that were to have taken place this coming
autumn at Minister in Germany it had been intended to
make a record in the matter of quick transportation and
to dispose of 120,000 men in the course of a single morn-

Arrival of Recruits

The Field Kitchen

THE ARMY 23

ing without interrupting the regular passenger traffic.
The old method of victualing armies, too, has had to be
changed, for it is impossible for such hordes to nourish
themselves by what they chance to find in the enemy's
country. Problems of another kind have arisen. Mod-
ern armies are composed of regulars and reservists alike :
the reservists are not so hardened as the regulars and
often not so efficient, so that it has become a custom to
distribute them in such a way as to achieve the best re-
sults. As a rule, the regulars must be spared for de-
cisive actions and reservists must occasionally be sacri-
ficed, apparently needlessly. There may be cases, for
instance, where the reserves must expose themselves to
a murderous fire while the regulars are engaged in the
more difficult but less dangerous task of cutting off the
enemy's line of retreat.

Technical improvements, such as the longer range and
quicker fire of the guns, swifter means of communica-
tion and of signaling and the like, not to speak of other
considerations due to experience, have so changed the old
tactics that a line of battle is now more than ten times as
long as it was only a few years ago. At Sadowa, with
215,000 men, the Austrians had a front of only 10 kilo-
meters; at Mukden the attacking line of the Japanese,
who had only 170,000 men, extended for 110 kilometers.
"The broken line," writes Bernhardi, "is to-day the only

24 GERMANY'S FIGHTING MACHINE

battle formation of the infantry." To-day, officers and
men fight in trenches and take every advantage of the
inequalities of the ground; in 1870 it was considered
disgraceful to take such advantages and the officers
stood erect in the most deadly fire. In consequence of
the length of the lines a check in one quarter is no longer
so serious a matter as it used to be; a modern battle is
a succession of single engagements of which the victor
only needs to win a good majority. The commander
no longer takes up a position, as Napoleon did at Leip-
zig, where he can oversee the whole field of operations;
the best place for him is some railroad junction or cen-
tral telephone station, with wireless and ordinary tele-
graph equipment, where messages can constantly be
sent and received, and to and from which he can despatch
troops, automobiles, motor-wagons or aeroplanes. One
of the chief modern problems is supplying sufficient
ammunition for quick-firing guns — the baggage trains
must not be so long as to hinder the advance of the
troops, yet where there are many guns and each shoots
off hundreds of shots a minute, great quantities of am-
munition are needed.

I have spoken of military service being almost uni-
versally compulsory in Europe. This means that every
man of a certain age and with the requisite health and
strength is obliged to report for duty. It has not hither-

Telegrams

Giving Orders

THE ARMY 25

to meant that every eligible recruit was obliged to serve.
In Germany a large contingent, even of the capable,
was formerly excused. In 1910, for instance, nearly
235,000 were declared more or less unfit for service, al-
though in France they would probably nearly all have
been accepted. By the German army bills of 1911, 1912
and 1913 indeed the numbers of those required for act-
ive service were steadily increased: 9,482 in the first
named year, some 29,000 in the second, and then the
great increase of 63,000 in the third. But there were
still, up to the present mobilization, some thirty thou-
sand able-bodied recruits who could not be placed.

In the Prussian military-service law of 1814, and
again in the constitution of the Xorth German Confed-
eration of 1867, the principle was laid down that the
army should consist of one per cent, of the population.
This had long been disregarded as the population in-
creased, and the proportion had sunk as low as eight-
tenths of one per cent. It has now been raised to a little
over the original figure. The population as given offi-
cially in 1913 was 64,925,993, while the number of com-
mon soldiers (I quote the figures given by Stavenhagen
in the Handbuch der Politik) was 647,811.*

* It may be worth giving the exact strength of the German army on October
1, 1913: Total 790,788 and 157,816 horses. Of these: officers, 30,253; sanitary
officers, 2,483; veterinaries, 865; non-commissioned officers, 104,377; common
soldiers, 647,811. (Infantry, 515,216; cavalry, 85,593; field artillery, 126,042;
sappers and miners, 24,010 ; communication troops, 18,949 ; army service, 1 1,592. )

The cost of the German army has been enormous-
more than twenty-five billion marks between 1872 and
1910, and in 1913 alone, 1,608,653,300 marks. The ex-
traordinary defense contribution for 1913, 1914 and
1915, a tax, not on income but on capital direct, is esti-
mated to bring nearly 1,300,000,000 marks. Strange to
say, the tax was very popular — every party in the
Reichstag voted for it, even the social democrats, whose
delight in a measure that fell most heavily on the rich
(small properties were exempted) made them swallowr
the fact that the money was for national and military
purposes. The yearly sums that the sudden increase in
the army entails are to be paid by a curious tax on the
increase of property value to be estimated every three
years.

The estimates as to how much the army numbers when
on a war footing varies between two and three-fourths
millions and four millions. Austria's army, on paper at
least, numbers 380,000 men in time of peace, which num-
ber gradually was to have risen to 410,000 in the next
few years. In war-time it is estimated at 1,300,000 men.
Curiously enough Italy, with a peace army of only 300,-
000, estimates her war army officially at 3,400,000, or
about as much as either Germany or France.

For the armies of the Triple Entente we have an esti-
mate published by the Deutsche Tageszeitung in Jan-

Military Telephone Station

Putting up Campaign Tents

THE ARMY 27

uary, 1914, which is worth quoting at some length, as it
is from a well-known military writer, Lieutenant
Colonel von Bremen:

"The basis of France's military increase in 1913 is the reintroduc-
tion of the three years' term of service. By retaining these third-
year men the peace-showing is increased by almost a third. This year
1 85,000 men are to be called in. The peace strength of the French
army will, from the autumn of 1916 on, amount to 33,000 officers and
officials and some 833,000 men, while up to that period we can
reckon with 780,000 men. One must add to this, 28,000 gendarmes,
customs and forest officials, who likewise belong to the territorial
army (like the Landwehr). In Germany we have for 1913 and
1914, counting officers, non-commissioned officers and men, 802,000,
to which, in 1915, will be added 13,000 men. Deducting from the
present strength of both armies the mere laborers who have to do
with supplies, etc., Germany's peace force is momentarily the higher,
but not if we reckon France's gendarmerie, etc. Counting in this,
France, with 40,000,000 inhabitants, has a larger army in time of
peace than Germany, with 65,000,000. The French army has fur-
ther advantages in the longer training and in the increased readiness
for war. The troops covering the eastern frontiers have two hun-
dred men to a company (four-fifths of the war strength) and even
at the time when the recruits are being mustered in, one hundred
forty trained men ; while our companies at the same time can dispose
of only half so strong a number. And what it means in case of war
to have at hand two fully trained years' contingents (especially in
the cavalry) during the period of training the recruits is self-evident.
Further advantages in the French army lie in the longer training of
the inactive officers and in the good provision for officers and non-
commissioned officers. In the house of deputies negotiations are
pending regarding advancement regulations tending to lower the
age limit of the whole body of officers. And, above all, it has been

28 GERMANY'S FIGHTING MACHINE

made possible to create a new, twenty-first army corps. So we see
that France, in 1913, has made a very great step forward.

The Russian armaments of 1913 are also significant. The most
important event was the appearance in October of the draft of a
law to prolong the term of active service by three months and that in
the decisive time from January first (fourteenth) to April first
(fourteenth). As in Russia, the recruits are called in at latest by
November fifteenth. Russia will, until spring, still have under arms,
besides the recruits, the trained contingents of three years in the in-
fantry— four, indeed, in the cavalry. That considerably increases
her readiness for war. And in addition to lengthening the term of
service the number of recruits is still further increased by twenty
thousand men. The momentary military strength of the Russian
empire is about one and one-half millions, of which about 1,200,000
concern Europe (thirty army corps and twenty-four cavalry di-
visions). But already for 1914 we can reckon on the formation of
from two to three new army corps and on a considerable increase of
the artillery by at least forty batteries, for which purpose three hun-
dred twenty million marks have been called for. To make mobiliza-
tion speedier and to facilitate the march to the west boundary rail-
roads are to be built. The estimates for this are about two hundred
sixty million marks. The following stretches are under considera-
tion: 1. Nowogeorgiewsk to Plozk on the Vistula. 2. Cholm —
Tomoschow — Belzek. 3. Schepetowka — Proskurow — Larga. In ad-
dition a number of lines are planned of which one is to encircle our
province of East Prussia. Along the German frontier, too, the erec-
tion of wireless stations has energetically been taken in hand. Like-
wise they have begun to modernize their fort and field artillery.
Side by side with these endeavors go intended improvements in mili-
tary education and training and organized changes in the situation
of the officers' corps and general staff in the way of raising salaries
and of quicker advancement. Thus for the Russian army, too, and
its capacity for service the year 1913 is to be looked upon as
important.

Furthest in arrears of the armies of the Triple Entente is the

The Crown Prince

The Crown Prince at Mess

THE ARMY 29

English, which made no progress worth speaking of in 1913. Eng-
land in her war plans against us long reckoned with landing an army
of invasion on our coast. The idea has been given up because it was
declared that probably the weak, active army would be more needed
elsewhere, especially as its maximum of about 130,000 men could
not play a decisive part against the millions-of-men armies of Ger-
many. Nor has the "territorial army," destined for protection at
home, shown any progress ; of its required strength there were still
lacking in October, 1913, seventy thousand men and all efforts to
bring it to the intended height of 314,000 men have failed. The
thought of tunnel connection with France, however, in spite of the
dislike of the Britisher, so proud of the isolation the sea offers him,
has found more adherents than was formerly the case.

If now we draw our conclusions from our military review of the
year 1913 the armaments of Austria and Italy on the one hand and
Russia and England on the other are insignificant as compared with
those of Germany and France. The two latter remain well in the
foreground, and indeed in a European war, too, it is they who first
and foremost would have to try conclusions with each other.

These observations, made by an expert at the begin-
ning of 1914, are exceedingly interesting in view of
what is now going on. Since Von Bremen wrote, how-
ever, there have been several interesting developments.
In February it became known that of the French soldiers
no less than 265,000 had died, were on the sick-list, or
had been discharged during the previous month. The
explanation is, that in order to raise the figures even
the poorest kind of material had been accepted, that old
unhealthy barracks were overcrowded and that new ones
had been occupied while the plaster was still wet on the

walls; that the army was short of physicians to the extent
of many hundreds. An official note in a Paris paper de-
clares that two-thirds of the recruits arrive in a tubercu-
lous condition. Together with these revelations comes
a book, by a French military aeronaut, complaining of
the utter neglect of the air fleet, and declaring that at
the moment France has not one serviceable hydroplane.
The whole appropriation for air-ships in connection with
the navy was but 400,000 francs in 1913, as compared
with millions appropriated by the rival powers. At the
same time come revelations regarding the regular navy
itself. Although there are nine dreadnaughts building,
but two are ready, and no cruisers.

In March appeared the "general annual report of the
British army," published by the War Office, which
showed that Von Bremen's statement as to the shortage
of men was not only not exaggerated but greatly under-
estimated. The regular army is 9,211 men short, the ter-
ritorial army 66,969, the special reserve 29,370. The
explanation lies in the greater attractiveness of the navy
and in the high emigration figures (178,468 males in
1913).

In April we hear of great appropriations in Austria
both for the army and the navy. Official estimates place
the strength of the army at 390,250 men, but a German
critic points out that of these 60,000 are Landwelir, or re-

Rear Guard in Ambush

Artillery Patrol

THE ARMY 31

serves, and ought not to be counted. There is to be a
yearly increase of 31,300 recruits, but the measure is not
to take full effect until 1918. For the navy, 427,000,000
kronen are appropriated, of which 4,000,000 are to go
for military air-ships; but the expenditures are to be
extended over a period of five years. It has been Aus-
tria's fate throughout the centuries always to be several
years behind.

In June, finally, we learn that Russia has set aside
for military expenditures in 1914 alone the monstrous
sum of 2,500,000,000 marks, and by 1916 will have
added 400,000 men — more than Austria's whole force —
to her standing army, which will amount, in the winter
months at least, to 2,200,000 men. "Characteristic,"
writes the Tdgliche Rundschau in commenting on it, "is
the strengthening of the western boundary-strip and the
improvement of the strategic network of railroads in
order to hasten the forwarding of troops." On the other
hand, attention is drawn in the Danziger Zeitung to the
fact that Russia has at the moment in the Baltic but four
battle-ships, all old-fashioned, although by 1915 it is
hoped to have ready four dreadnaughts.

We shall hear much in the next few months of in-
fantry and cavalry, of field artillery and foot artillery,
of pioneers, of Verkclirstruppen or communication

troops, and of the Train or transport division. I there-
fore preface this section with the definition of these
terms given by a staff officer in the newest book of in-
structions for the one-year volunteers.

The infantry represent the main troops of the army. Their value
lies in their endurance when marching, in their correct shooting and
in their brave dashing against the enemy. The infantry is armed
with the ninety-eight gun and bayonet; the sword-knot non-commis-
sioned officers (Portepeeunteroffiziere) , battalion-drummers and am-
bulance-men carry revolvers.

To the infantry belong the sharpshooter battalions (Jagerba-
taillone), the guard sharpshooter battalion (Garde jagerbataillon}
and the guard rifle-battalion (Gardeschiitzenbataillon}. The infan-
trymen are known as grenadiers, musketeers and fusileers.

The cavalry is armed with lance, saber and carbine. Its chief
value is for scouting and for precautionary service, but it is also used
for riding down the enemy and piercing him with the lance. The
cavalry may also dismount and fight on foot like the infantry. For
shooting it uses the carbine.

The cavalry consists of cuirassiers, uhlans, hussars, dragoons and
mounted riflemen. (In Saxony guard-riders (Gardereiter) and car-
bineers; in Bavaria heavy riders and light horse (Chevaulegers}.}

The field artillery is effective through the swiftness with which it
rides up and through the certainty of aim of its quick-firing guns.
The field artillery carries batteries of cannon for firing against
visible goals and light howitzer batteries, for shooting at objects be-
hind cover and for demolishing light field fortifications. The drivers
carry a sword and revolver, the cannoneers a dagger and revolver.
Every man of the horse-drawn division is mounted and carries sword
and revolver.

The foot artillery has to serve the fort and siege artillery as well
as the heavy artillery guns of the field army; in attacking a fortress
it must silence the enemy's heavy fort guns and make breaches in the

Floating the Pontoons

Machine Guns Being Loaded on Pontoons

THE ARMY 33

fortifications; when defending it must overcome the enemy's heavy
siege guns. The men are called cannoneers; they carry the carbine
and the ninety-eight bayonet.

The pioneers see to the throwing up of entrenchments, the build-
ing and destroying of bridges, obstructions, etc. ; they are armed like
the infantrymen.

The communication troops consist of the railroad regiments, which
in time of war have to see to the building and running of railroads ;
of the telegraph battalions, which put up telegraph lines; of the
fortress telephone companies, which attend to all telephone matters
in the fortress ; of the air-ship and aeroplane battalions, who are en-
trusted with spying out the land and the enemy's positions by means
of balloons, air-ships and aeroplanes.

The communication troops are armed like the infantry.

The transport service (Train) supplies every kind of column of
the army with bridge materials, food, ammunition, etc. Its weapons
are swords, carbines and revolvers.

It is not worth while here to enter into the question of
uniforms. In time of peace the blue coats and red col-
lars of the infantry, the varied colored attilas and fur
caps of the hussars, the helms with the flying eagles of
the guards, the tresses, the gleaming epaulettes, the
scarves, the waving plumes, are all interesting enough,
especially to the other sex; but in war that is all laid
aside. In order to be as invisible as possible to the
enemy all categories of troops wear the same ashen
gray — a comparatively recent adaptation of the prin-
ciple of protective coloring.

In the German army the cavalry is merely an adjunct
of the infantry. It is the infantry which decides battles

34 GERMANY'S FIGHTING MACHINE

— not the cavalry, not even the artillery. However, the
infantry of to-day is something very different from the
infantry of the eighteenth and even from that of a
great part of the nineteenth century. German military
writers acknowledge that the world learned new tactics
from the sharpshooters and riflemen of the American
war of the rebellion. The whole modern battle forma-
tion rests on the idea of giving more play to the indi-
vidual. In spite of the technical progress that has made
of armies great machines, more weight than ever before
is laid on quick judgment, on good shooting, on physical
bravery and endurance. I know that an idea quite con-
trary to this prevails, that many consider war reduced
to the art of setting off the greatest quantities of ex-
plosives within a given time. But this is very far from
the truth. The battles of the past were of much shorter
duration than are those of the present. Wagram was
won in two hours, Mukden took three days.

One learns to adapt one's self even to quick-firing
guns and incredible rifle-ranges. It has been math-
ematically demonstrated that, with the rifles now in the
hands of the German infantry, a bullet fired from a dis-
tance of three hundred yards will pass right through five
men standing closely one behind the other and lodge in
the body of the sixth. But men in battle line no longer
stand closely one behind the other, nor even closely side

Pursuit

Infantry Embarking

THE ARMY 35

by side. Even in what is considered a thick firing line
they stand about three feet apart.

I have said that the modern idea is to give more play
to the individual. Within certain limits the men choose
their own position, find the proper rests for their rifles,
get each the range for himself, determine the speed of
their own fire and use their own judgment in the econ-
omizing of ammunition. They are expected to advance
according as they see their opportunity.

A glance at the methods of training the infantry will
give some idea of the care and thoroughness with which
the Germans have made their preparations for war. The
old drill has not been entirely abandoned — indeed, some
military critics think that there is still too much of the
goose-step marching and of the parade tricks. But these
have lost their old importance and the tendency of late
jrears is toward the most realistic representation of the
circumstances and problems of actual combat. The pa-
rade-ground has given place to the maneuvering field,
acres and miles in extent. For the first time in Ger-
many, this autumn, whole army corps were to have en-
gaged in mock combat with one another.

In the ordinary rifle practise the men are taught first
to shoot well individually, then in groups and detach-
ments, next in whole troops and companies and finally
in conjunction with cavalry and artillery. They are

made to adapt themselves to the most unfamiliar and un-
usual surroundings. Even the targets are of the most
varied description : targets that fall to the ground when
hit, targets that burst, targets surrounded by smoking
objects or colored fires so that there will be some of the
semblance of battle, fixed targets and targets that move
or that float in the air, targets that have been lying flat on
the ground but that suddenly appear here and there like
an enemy issuing from the bushes. The rifleman must
learn never to be surprised at anything, but to keep his
eyes open in all directions.

The German army rifle is of a type first introduced
in 1888, and so much improved in 1898 that it is now
known as the ninety-eight gun. All the infantry
carry the same, for there is no longer any essential
distinction between musketeers, fusileers and grena-
diers. It is a quick-loading rifle which renders it pos-
sible to take aim and shoot as many as twenty-five
times a minute. The caliber is seven and nine-tenths
millimeters, a fact which may not at first seem to the
American reader of great importance, but which be-
comes more interesting when it is realized that this is
the smallest caliber which will inflict sufficient injury on
an enemy to make its use profitable. In other words, if
it does not kill him at once it will put him out of the fight
and keep him out for a reasonable time. It was found

Cannon for Shooting Airships

Combination Hydro and Aeroplane

THE ARMY 37

in the Russian- Japanese War that a smaller bullet could,
and in a number of cases did, pass through a foeman's
body without rendering him liors de combat, and that
no less than forty per cent, of all wounded were back
with their troops in three months.

There are Maxim rifles which can fire as many as a
hundred shots a minute and which have other advantages
too ; but the German government is well satisfied with its
own gun, considers it superior to that of any of its
neighbors' and has never seriously considered the ques-
tion of changing. It has a smokeless powder, the process
of manufacture of which is a carefully guarded secret.

A recent innovation is the supplying of the infantry
— for that matter of the cavalry also — with so-called
machine guns. They are the Catling guns of our own
country, and every German infantry regiment now —
since the arm}7 reform of 1913 — has a machine-gun com-
pany. It consists of ninety men and forty horses, with
six guns and three ammunition wagons. As the newest
guns can fire at the rate of six hundred shots a minute,
and as there are more than two hundred infantry regi-
ments, not to speak of the cavalry and artillery, which
also have their companies of "Gatlings," one can gain
some impression of the deadliness of modern campaign-
ing. Many of the quick-firing guns now are supplied
with stands on pivots so that they can be pointed in the

38 GERMANY'S FIGHTING MACHINE

air against balloons and aeroplanes. But their chief use
will be in guarding bridges and narrow passes. Their
bullets carry for two miles, but they can be silenced by
heavy artillery far beyond this range, nor can they carry
enough ammunition for long-continued use. Alto-
gether, however, a comparison of their fire with the sim-
ple flames of the traditional hell makes the latter place
seem a mere pleasure -resort.

The training of a soldier has of late years become
more and more humane and rational, and is no longer
confined to manning guns, shooting rifles and per-
forming long marches. Those Germans with whom I
have spoken on the subject look back to their term of
service with pleasure, and my general conviction is that
the army in time of peace is the most perfect educa-
tional institution in existence. With school learning
every boy when he comes to "serve" is more or less
equipped. What he learns is esprit de corps, manly
bearing, endurance and the feeling that his tasks must
be quickly and faultlessly performed — in other words,
regularity and discipline. The mere change of sur-
roundings and interests is a benefit, and the outlook on
the world is immeasurably broadened. The old argu-
ment against compulsory military training — that, name-
ly, young men in their best years are withdrawn from
productive work, does not amount to much in an age

Covered Field Artillery

A Howitzer Battery Crossing a Pontoon Bridge

THE ARMY 39

where the general complaint is of overcrowdedness in
almost every calling and profession. The German boy
does his work all the better for his military training and
the nation has thoroughly adjusted itself to the falling
out of these two years. There are dispensations for cases
where the boy's presence at home is a vital matter for the
support of others, and, as a rule, a place that he filled be-
fore is kept open for him against his return.

One of the pleasantest recent developments has been
the enthusiasm for sport that had taken hold of the
army. The authorities encouraged it in every way, for
it was in keeping with the new tactics of training the
individual to be efficient and independent. The author
had the pleasure of attending the first great military
athletic meet that has ever taken place. It was held in
June, 1914, in the great stadium that has been erected
near Berlin for the Olympic games of 1916, and that
army which is now fighting so strenuously for the very
existence of its country was represented in all its pomp
and glory. On an elevated terrace was the emperor with
his court. Next came the logen or boxes which were
blue with the uniforms of the officers. A large majority
of the spectators were soldiers, for whom whole section*
had been reserved; they marched in in seemingly un-
ending lines, looking very neat in their summer undress
uniforms. The exercises began with gymnastics or

40 GERMANY'S FIGHTING MACHINE

turnen., to which, all over Germany, the greatest im-
portance is attached. There was the usual running,
jumping and throwing of weights — with us it is a shot,
with them it is a discus. There was a cross-country run
of four miles which started and ended in the stadium,
and in which some fifty or sixty officers took part. It
was won by a splendid young prince of the royal house,
Prince Frederick Leopold. The best comment that I
heard on him was that he looked like a first-class Ameri-
can.

But most interesting of all was the obstacle race for
the common soldiers. A part of their regular training
consists in climbing walls and trees ; and on their parade
grounds you will find special tracks with ditches, walls
and palisades ; while occasionally the obstacles are of the
most serious kind — iron railings with twisted spikes
through which they must make their way. In the sta-
dium games the soldiers lined up on the farther side of
a great swimming-pool that runs along one end of the
field below the spectators. At a given signal they
plunged into the water, swam for dear life to the other
side, climbed the low protecting wall and were off helter-
skelter for the hurdles and other obstacles. Behind one
of the hurdles, concealed by green boughs, was a slimy
watery hole, but it detained them but for a moment.
Across the track a high straight impromptu wall was

Effect of Two Shells on a Six-Foot Reinforced Concrete Wall

Scaling Barricades

THE ARMY 41

held in place by soldiers and up it all the contestants had
to clamber. One almost stuck at the top; you watched
him breathlessly to see if he could achieve it, but there
was no jeering, as I fear there would have been at home.
The whole race, in which were some fifty or more par-
ticipants, was run with a wonderful freshness, joyous-
ness and what the Germans call schneidigkeit, which
corresponds to our American slang expression "toni-
ness."

Even in the ordinary practise on the parade-ground
an adjutant keeps a record of the time that the soldiers
need to overcome the different obstacles. Whole com-
panies have to pass the required tests. The whole thing
is already reduced to such a system that in war an officer
will know to the smallest detail what he can expect of
his men. Great importance is attached to swimming, for
occasions are sure to arise in a campaign when streams
are to be forded or where the pontoon divisions have
to be assisted.

On the whole the rise of sport has had a great level-
ing influence in the army. Soldiers and officers do not,
indeed, compete with each other as a rule ; but they take
part in the same meets, and I have observed that the
soldier seems to rise in importance while the tendency of
the officer is to forget himself in the excitement of the
moment. I have a vision of non-participants flying

across the field with the tails of their long coats flap-
ping behind them to carry tidings or encouragement to
some tired runner — which denotes a very great change
from the unswervingly dignified bearing of other days.
Soldiers and officers now are encouraged to join athletic
associations, which makes for less exclusiveness.

If the infantry is the mainstay of the German army,
the cavalry is indispensable for reconnoitering, for mak-
ing raids and for pursuit. Each cavalryman, as has
been said, carries a lance, a sword and a carbine. Much
time is spent in training the men to the use of the lance,
which is of hollow steel. Men of straw, for instance, are
placed on the ground and the lancer, riding by, has to
inflict a wound in exactly the place designated. Or a
straw head is placed on a stake and must be knocked
off in passing. The carbines, which are stuck in the sad-
dle, are of a perfected modern type and are but little
inferior to the muskets of the infantry.

Cavalry regiments, with which speed of progress is
the first consideration, carry their own bridge-wagons,
so that they can either repair bridges that have been de-
stroyed, or construct entirely new ones. It has been
found that rafts made of fodder-bags stuffed with straw
and held together by lances, boards, logs, etc., can carry
comparatively heavy weights. Six such bags as I have
described can, at a pinch, carry six men. Barrels and

bfi

'•g

e3
h

Cavalry Patrol

Building a Bridge with Sacks

THE ARMY 43

chests are still more useful if they happen to be at hand.
Xeedless to say, the cavalry bridge-wagons also carry
explosives for destroying the enemy's bridges and other
defenses.

It has been thought in some quarters that aeroplanes
and other contrivances for scouting and communication
would supersede cavalry, but the German army adminis-
tration evidently does not think so, as it has more than
150,000 horses in use even in time of peace. In time of
war all private horses are subject to requisition, as are
also automobiles, motor-trucks, motor-wheels and aero-
planes. The better riders in a regiment train the horses
for the rest, and there is a constant mustering out of the
inferior ones in favor of others that are stronger or
younger or more docile. There are military riding
schools at Hanover, Dresden and Munich, where officers
are taught not only to ride well and to instruct others
but also to break in young horses.

Prussia has her own stud-farms in which the royal
family, since the days of Frederick William I, has taken
the greatest interest. There is a regular Prussian type,
small and tough. The theory has lately been advanced
that Asiatic horses are more free from disease and that
they proved more enduring in the recent Turkish-Bul-
garian War, while the Prussian horse, through faults in
the manner of raising, has degenerated during the long

44 GERMANY'S FIGHTING MACHINE

period of unbroken peace. This, however, is simply an
academic question and nothing short of war itself can
demonstrate that under all conditions another type of
horse will be preferable.

The Russian-Japanese War brought the old cavalry
raid, such as we associate with the names of Sheridan
and Wilson, once more to honor, and an expedition of
Mischtschenko's in February, 1905, though not wholly
successful, aroused much interest in cavalry circles in
Europe. It is considered not unlikely that such "raids"
will play a great part in the present war. The Germans
use the American word for the maneuver.

If cavalry is merely an adjunct of infantry, this is
still more true of artillery. Its function, according to
the latest German writers, is to facilitate the advance of
the infantry, or, in other words, to break and open the
path by which the infantry shall storm. It has some-
times been thought of the battle of the future that it
would consist of two parts : the great artillery duel and
the infantry struggle ; and that the infantry would have
to stand aside until the artillery duel was over. The con-
trary is the case. The two, in this coming war, will fight
side by side: the artillery opening the breach, the in-
fantry coming in.

German batteries consist of six guns, while those of
the French have only four. Good authorities, even in

Wheel Belt for Cannon

A Howitzer Battery

THE ARMY 45

Germany, prefer the French system, but the change
would mean more expense than was considered war-
rantable. A novelty is that the guns now have great
steel shields that protect the gunners. Another most
useful innovation is the so-called wheel belt. A number
of flat blocks or shoes, wider than the tire and hinged so
as to form a great chain, protect the wheels of the gun-
carriage and prevent them from sinking into the mud.
Formerly a supply of beams, jackscrews and the like
had to be carried along for use in extricating the cannon
when they stuck fast. Xow every large gun in the army
has its belt, which can be removed and put on again at
will, the operation lasting but six minutes.

The largest guns accompanying the infantry have a
bore of twenty-one centimeters, which is much less, of
course, than the fixed guns in fortresses or those used
for coast defense. The size of these is ever increasing,
and there is already talk of forty centimeter guns. The
field guns fire shells and shrapnel and there is a so-called
"unit charge" which is a combination of the two. A
shrapnel is a thin metal ball filled with explosive bullets
and can be discharged either by ignition or percussion.
It is considered preferable to have it burst in the air, just
above the point aimed at, as the shock is downward.
Krupp has patented a shell that explodes by clock-work.

One further fact concerning artillery may interest

46 GERMANY'S FIGHTING MACHINE

those who follow the present campaigns. In all the
older famous battles the greatest efforts were made to
drag the artillery up the hills and have it crown the
heights. According to recent strategy it chooses rather
low-lying protected spots. Howitzers can shoot right
over a hill and have the shell curve and descend on the
other side. The calculations as to just where it will
strike are made with astounding accuracy, even though
the goal itself may be invisible. The guns are being
constantly improved, but the greatest secrecy is observed
with regard to them. They are shrouded as they pass
through the streets and no one can inspect them without
a written order.

The low situation has its great advantages as well as
its disadvantages, but the latter can be counteracted.
In order to be able to overlook the field, each battery
now has an observation ladder or column, of which the
parts can be telescoped into short space and carried be-
tween two wheels. When desired it is projected into the
air. One advantage of this new invention is that the
wheeled observation ladder can be sent off to quite a
distance carrying a portable telephone by means of
which it is possible at all times to communicate with the
gunners.

Many cannon now have telescopes attached to them
to assist the gunner in taking aim. When we reflect

Observation Column

Observation Ladder

Covered Field Artillery

THE ARMY 47

that some of the guns can shoot five and six miles, the
necessity of this will be apparent.

For storming fortifications there are special heavy
siege guns. A modern fortress is something very dif-
ferent from a medieval or even from an early nine-
teenth century one. The old city walls, however solidly
built, are now regarded as mere pleasant bits of an-
tiquity, and in dozens of German towns have been razed
to the ground and converted into rings or boulevards. So
in the city of Cologne, in Ulm. In their place we now
have groups of sunken guns, of protected batteries and
of underground bomb-proof rooms with walls of re-
inforced concrete twelve and fifteen feet thick. Here
and there armored turrets project a few feet above the
ground. Some of the rooms are large enough for a
whole company of infantry. The sunken guns can
rise from their resting-places, fire their charges and sink
back into their beds. Germany has twenty-eight land
forts in all, of which nine are modern in every regard,
and eight coast fortifications. Should the Russians en-
ter Prussia we may hear much of the great forts at
Konigsberg, Graudenz and Thorn, at Danzig, Kulm
and Marienburg, or of the Silesian forts Glogau, Xeisse
and Glatz, which played a part already in the wars of
Frederick the Great. In the west, Metz and Strasburg
have been immeasurably strengthened since they passed

into German hands, and Mainz, Coblenz, Cologne, Ger-
mersheim and Wesel are all formidable. To the south
are Ulm and Ingolstadt, while in the north are Kustrin
and Spandau, the latter but a few miles from Berlin. In
Saxony is the Konigstein, which, by reason of its natural
position, is considered as impregnable as any fortress
can be.

Whether the Germans will ever be forced back into
these strong positions remains to be seen. Their policy
is to keep to the offensive and spare their own land as
much as possible. However, what strength of arms may
fail to accomplish may be reserved for famine. With
her commerce entirely cut off, the food supply for the
nation at large will be but scanty, and of all the criti-
cisms I have read on the German army during the last
six months those on the commissariat department have
been the most severe. A change in the whole adminis-
tration was ordered a few months before the war broke
out, but it has scarcely as yet had time to go into full
effect.

The Army of the Air

Probably the greatest difference between ancient and
modern warfare lies in the systematic use that is now
made of balloons, air-ships, aeroplanes and kites, also of
telegraphy, both fixed and wireless, and of the tele-

THE ARMY 49

phone. I should add to these, automobiles, motor-trucks,
motorcycles and simple bicycles.

It may not be generally known that as far back as
1870 Germany attempted to make regular use of mili-
tary balloons, and that two balloons and equipment were
purchased from an English aeronaut. Several ascents
were successfully made with a member of the general
staff as passengers. Before Paris, however, it proved
impossible to obtain the gas for inflation, and the whole
balloon detachment was dissolved. Fourteen years later,
in 1884, regular experiments regarding the taking of
observations and the exchanging of signals were be-
gun. Fifty thousand marks a year were set aside for
the purpose, and so satisfactory were the results that in
1887 a regular balloon corps wras organized with a ma-
jor, a captain, three lieutenants and fifty non-commis-
sioned officers and men. The discovery that the gas
could be transported in steel cases in a greatly condensed
form placed military ballooning on a much securer
basis and the corps, greatly increased, has taken part in
the yearly maneuvers since 1893. The captive balloon
is still used as a sort of training-ship for recruits, but
the free balloon has been practically superseded.

The first Zeppelin and the first Parseval air-ships were
acquired in 1907 and, in spite of frequent accidents,
have become as much a part of the armed forces as have

50 GERMANY'S FIGHTING MACHINE

batteries or battle-ships. There are now no less than five
air-ship battalions under the "general board of inspec-
tion of military, air and power transport matters." The
combined appropriations of Prussia, Bavaria and Wiirt-
temberg for their air fleets in 1913 amounted to 70,000,-
000 marks. The recent ships, which are not necessarily
confined to the Zeppelin type, though built along the
same lines, are almost as large as ocean steamships. Last
year the "L II" carried twenty-eight passengers on its
trial trip. It exploded in mid-air and twenty-seven
were killed, among them almost all of Germany's chief
military aeronautic experts. "L III," which is nearly
completed, will have a displacement of 32,000 cubic
meters. The largest and newest ship at present, the
Schiitte-Lanz II, has a displacement of between 23,000
and 24,000 cubic meters, is run by four Maybach mo-
tors, each of one hundred seventy horse-power, and beats
the previous Zeppelin record for speed ( seventy-nine kil-
ometers or forty-nine and three-eighths miles an hour)
by six kilometers. No other country has any air-ship that
can in any way compare with this. Under construction
is the twenty-fifth Zeppelin, which will have a length of
some four hundred fifty feet. All modern air-ships are
equipped with wireless telegraphy having a range of
about four hundred kilometers, and can carry light Gat-
ling guns. They can lift a weight of some 16,000

Gondola of the Schiitte-Lanz I Airship

Airship Parseval

THE ARMY 51

pounds and their cost is from 700,000 marks upward.
The Germans have practised very industriously with
their air-ships — only the other day a pilot completed his
seven hundredth trip.

Whether in war the Zeppelins will come up to the
expectations that have been formed of them remains of
course to be seen. One can conceive of a single ship,
under favorable conditions, throwing down enough ex-
plosives on an army to put it completely to rout. But
the Zeppelin is a very big target and its motors make
enough noise to warn a whole city of its approach. Rus-
sia and Germany herself now have many vertical guns
for shooting air-ships. On the other hand, a Zeppelin
can fly very high and can take refuge behind a cloud.
Its chief objects of attack will doubtless be arsenals,
dockyards, bridges and tunnel-mouths, though no fleet
near the shore and no camp can feel quite safe from it
in future. It would be so tempting to drop a shell in
the midst of an enemy's general staff and thus bring
confusion into the whole guidance of the army!

The Zeppelin has dangerous enemies in the ordinary
aeroplanes. A Frenchman has just vowed to run the
nose of his "plane" into the first air-ship that appears
over Paris. It is possible for the airman to shoot, too, at
close range, or to fly above the monster and let down
ropes with hooks that shall tear its sides. The new

52 GERMANY'S FIGHTING MACHINE

ships, however, as I have said, can carry Galling guns,
and it is only a question of how they can best trail them
on the enemy. The latest idea is a shaft that shall ex-
tend right through the body of the Zeppelin and come
out on the upper surface. This arrangement has been
tried on the newest Schiitte-Lanz.

To the value of aeroplanes as instruments of war
Germany awakened late. Not until after an exhibition
of the American, Orville Wright, on the Templehof
field near Berlin in 1910 was the matter taken very
seriously. Now there are four flying battalions in the
army with nearly fifteen hundred men, and it is believed
that the machines are more solid and stable than those of
the French. All records were broken by German ma-
chines during the past year, and the great Prince Henry
races in May, though fatal accidents occurred, demon-
strated very well about what may be expected from a
troop of airmen in time of war. The conditions were
extremely severe and the weather was not favorable, yet
twelve out of twenty-nine starters achieved the final goal
within the time limit.

The favorite machine in the German army is the Al-
batross-Taube, which looks quite warlike with its metal
armor covering motor and all. Both monoplanes and
biplanes are used. In case of war all aeroplanes, even
the stock in trade of the manufacturer, are com-

Marine Airship

A Zeppelin over the Kiel Bay

THE ARMY 53

mandeered. These aeroplanes are easily transportable
by rail so that a number of them can be concentrated
close to the scene of action. They will be used for scout-
ing, carrying despatches and dropping bombs, and un-
doubtedly will have a great effect upon warfare. It is
likely that more maneuvering will be done under the
cover of night than formerly in order to escape the spy-
ing eyes of the birdmen, that false marches and maneu-
vers will be undertaken, that bivouac fires will be
lighted in unoccupied places merely for the purpose of
deceiving. It will be easy to conceal cannon by covering
them with green boughs.

The German soldiers are already being trained for
these new night operations which the aeroplane and air-
ship will necessitate. They are taught to make their way
by the moon and stars, to place their ears to the ground
and catch and interpret sounds. It is possible for a
finely trained ear to tell in the case of a passing horse
whether it is running free or whether it is carrying a
load, also to estimate the approximate number of a pass-
ing troop. Silent marching is practised, too, the greatest
care being taken that the objects carried shall not clash
or rattle. The enemy carries powerful electric search-
lights against aeroplanes; a single apparatus requires
several vehicles, each drawn by four horses. There must
be a motor, a dynamo, a great mirror, a water wagon

and a portable tower thirty feet high. The infantry
carries lighter apparatus, too, that can now be loaded on
an automobile, the motor of which can be used for run-
ning the dynamo. Aeroplanes, too, now carry search-
lights.

An enormous number of automobiles are used in the
army. The German government has a special arrange-
ment with motor-truck owners (the same is done with
steamship companies) by \vhich it pays a subsidy for
new trucks on the understanding that they shall be at its
disposal in time of need. It has been estimated that nine
motor-wagons can replace one hundred thirty-nine horses
and will need thirty instead of one hundred two men.
Such a wagon will carry easily four tons of baggage.

The Officers

With all the technical aids and inventions, however,
the decisive factor in a war remains the men and more
especially the officers.

I recently overheard a well-known Boston woman
teacher holding forth with the positiveness of complete
conviction on the subject of the German officer and com-
miserating him on the life of idleness circumstances
forced him to lead "except, of course, during the three
or four hours a day wrhen he is obliged to exercise." The
remark was addressed to a distinguished Harvard pro-

Albatross-Taube Model 1914

Albatross-Taube Packed for Shipping

Double Monoplane

Albatross Hydro and Aeroplane

THE ARMY 55

fessor — anti-military, however, to the core — who had no
contradiction to offer. I should have marked both of
these great people zero for flat ignorance of the subject
had I had them in a class. The German officer, I grant,
may occasionally seem as idle and as frivolous as the son
of a new American millionaire: the only difference
would be that the American conceals his idleness under
a show of industriousness, sending telegrams when he
has nothing else to do, while the German conceals the
fact that he has been up since four in the morning train-
ing a mass of raw recruits, that he has spent several
hours at the Kriegsakademie studying languages, geog-
raphy, political economy and the like and that he has as
a permanent job some important problem in tactics to
work out. Those who know the methods of the Prussian
government could never accuse it of giving its employees
too little work. A list is kept of all officers in which
their industry, their interest in their work and their gen-
eral good conduct is noted. The ideal that is kept before
them may not be exactly our ideal, but it is a wonderful
one of knightly virtue all the same. The man may
never forget that he is a leader of men; he must grip
his standard of honor, such as it is, like grim death and
be willing unhesitatingly to lay down his life for it. If
he flinch or falter in physical encounter or in any way
is "guilty of conduct unbecoming an officer" he has to

resign his position. He has to conform not only to the
rule of his superiors but also to the code of his fellow
officers. There are things in that code that one would
like not to see there and one misses much that might
well be included, but to down the profession as a sine-
cure "except, of course, during the three or four hours
a day" is the purest folly.

And peace-time is the mere waiting-period, the period
of training for the real work. In war-time the fate of
the whole country hangs on the officer. An Italian,
Mangiarotti, recently inquired of some two thousand
soldiers who had just taken part in the African cam-
paign regarding their sensations when facing the
enemy. "The great ideals of God, king and father-
land," he writes, "incorporate themselves in one single
personality, the officer." The lieutenant who does his
duty in the firing line is an absolute hero to his men.
But only real superiority of mind and body can keep
him at this height.

There are more than thirty thousand officers in the
regular standing army, the great majority of them be-
longing to the nobility, who feel that they have a heredi-
tary right to these positions. I am inclined to think
that this feeling of caste will not be disadvantageous in
war. The military career from youth up has been the
one serious object and occupation in life. The memory

A Taube over the Military Flying Grounds at Johannisthal, near Berlin

Biplane

Airship Transportation Wagon

THE ARMY 57

of Jena has been preventative of pride and an incentive
to hard work. The habit of commanding gained as
lord of the manor — as Herr Graf or as Herr Baron —
will not be useless in the field.

Price Collier, in his Germany and the Germans, gives
the officer a bad character for arrogance and instances
the fact that an officer will crowd a woman off the side-
walk. Such cases are very rare to-day, much rarer than
they were some thirty years ago. The Zabern affair,
however, has thrown a glaring light on a certain pre-
sumptuousness in the army and aroused at the time very
bitter passions. There was a contempt for the ordinary
laws of justice connected with the trial that is likely to
avenge itself in time if it has not already done so. But
no human institution is perfect, and the officer has at
present far other things to think of than presumptuous-
ness.

In time of war many more officers are needed than in
time of peace. This is provided for in Germany by a
different and less perfect system than in France. From
the one-year volunteers, of whom there are about 15,000
yearly, are taken the "officer aspirants," who then un-
dergo supplementary training, returning at intervals in
later life for further instruction and practise. The
general structure of the army does not change in time
of war. Instead of numbering five or six hundred men

58 GERMANY'S FIGHTING MACHINE

the size of a battalion is raised to eleven hundred or
more. There are supplementary troops in all branches,
consisting party of retired soldiers and partly of raw
recruits, who must be licked into shape as quickly as pos-
sible, but who serve mainly to fill up the ranks at the
front as they become depleted. Every able-bodied man
must leave his occupation and take to the ranks whether
he has had military training or not. Even a German in
foreign lands, if he fail to report for duty to his consul,
is liable on his return to a sentence of six years in the
penitentiary How many will hasten to naturalize
themselves in other countries is one of the problems of
the war.

Horses, too, are called in in great numbers as soon as
mobilization is ordered. In time of peace the twenty-
five army corps, each numbering about forty thousand
men, require 157,000 horses; in time of war the demand,
of course, will be much larger, and this is provided for
by instant requisition. But not at random. A list or
census is regularly kept of practically all the horses in
the country ; it is revised at stated intervals and commis-
sioners note the adaptability of every animal to this or
that purpose. In times of mobilization the animals are
brought before final commissions, consisting partly of
military, partly of civilian members, who appraise their
value and declare them confiscate. The transferring of

ff, 0*1

Uhlans Crossing River

Uhlans Fording River

Easily Upset

horses to the rallying centers is one of the chief difficul-
ties of the railroads, which, as is well known, belong to
the state and are altogether closed to general traffic dur-
ing the mobilization period.

Germany is putting, so it is estimated, some four
million men into the field. And behind them, should
the war last long, are nearly a million boys who belong
to the Prussian Jung Deutschland and to the Bavarian
Wehrkraftverein. Boy scouts, we should call them in
our country, but in Germany they are regularly trained
by officers in the army — an occupation of these sinecure-
holders that I omitted to mention. They are taken in
squads on long tramps, are trained to use their eyes and
ears and enjoy the life of the hills and woods. They
carry their cooking utensils and prepare their own
meals. The government encourages the institution by
large grants and often places barracks and tents at the
disposal of the boys for longer expeditions. Public and
private generosity, too, has provided homes in out-of-
the-way places where the boys can take shelter over
night.

How deadly an instrument for war is the German
army remains to be seen. That it has already accom-
plished many fine things in time of peace is undoubted.
Xot the least of these is the spread of hygienic knowl-
edge and the encouragement of manliness.

60 GERMANY'S FIGHTING MACHINE

By the terms of the German constitution the Kaiser
is head and chief of the whole German army and, not-
withstanding concessions made to Bavaria, Wiirttem-
berg and Saxony for the period when it remains on a
peace-footing, is absolute commander in time of war.
Whether he will personally take the field or not is an-
other question. If he does he will be upheld by an
enormous wave of loyalty, but, on the other hand, the
presence of a monarch in camp is often a hindrance to
the operations. His own great-grandfather, and at the
same time the Austrian emperor, made life very bitter
for Bliicher and the other real fighters in 1814.

The real business of commanding a modern army is
done by the chief of the general staff. It is of good
augury that the present holder of that position is again
a Moltke. On him falls the planning and the respon-
sibility for carrying out of the plans, though he has un-
der him a huge staff of subordinates — more than two
hundred in all — whose duty is to collect information,
make reports and even tender advice. The older Moltke
once wrote: "The make-up of the headquarters of an
army is of an importance not always sufficiently real
ized. Some commanders need no advice, but weigh and
decide things for themselves. Their subordinates have
merely to carry out instructions. But such stars of
first radiance are only to be found about once in a cen-

THE ARMY 61

tury. Only a Frederick the Great takes counsel with
no one and determines everything himself. As a rule
the leader of an army can not do without advice." The
old plan was to hold a council of war and abide by its
decisions; the new one is for the commanding general
to use every aid from others but to take the whole re-
sponsibility himself.

Headquarters travels with the arm)T and with it goes
the imperial chancellor, ready to take advantage of
every happening in the field to influence the course of
negotiations. The minister of war remains at home to
see to the prompt forwarding of troops and supplies. In
1870 and 1871 Bismarck had much to suffer from fe-
male influences — royal ladies who objected to the bom-
bardment of beautiful cities and the like. There are at
present no royal ladies in Germany who are likely to
interfere. Bliicher used to insist that the most merciful
way of making war was to be absolutely relentless in
pursuit — to the last man and to the last horse. The
worst thing that can happen is to have the campaign
drag on slowly with necessity of renewing battles. This
phase of the matter royal ladies do not always under-
stand.

If the example of the Franco-Prussian War is fol-
lowed the Germans will put as many as six different
armies into the field, each with some four army-corps.

There are twenty-five army-corps, and the fighting part
of a single army-corps, which numbers some 41,000
men, strings out on an ordinary road to a distance of
twenty-six kilometers or more than sixteen miles. As
the food supplies, medical and surgical apparatus and
ammunition wagons have to follow at a considerable
distance we may estimate the length of the whole col-
umn at more than double this amount. Were the whole
standing army (not to speak of the reserves) to travel
along the same road it would take twenty-five days to
pass a fixed point. It may be said here that the number
of direct roads passing from Germany into France is
small and that for purposes of invasion the possession
of Belgium was a strategic necessity. Its occupation
meant victory or defeat in the great struggle and the
devil take the consequences. Belgium and France are
so at one that the French have so trusted to the forts of
Liege and Namur, which they believed to be impreg-
nable, that they have done little to fortify their own
borders in that direction.

Who the commanding generals of the German army
are to be has not yet been made public in America.
Judging by the holders of high positions in peace-time
they will be Grand Duke Frederick II of Baden, Duke
Albert of Wiirttemberg, Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria
and the generals Biilow, Eichhorn, Heeringen and

Prittwitz. Whether or not the German crown-prince
will be given a command is doubtful. He is brave and
dashing but impetuous and unbalanced, and his rela-
tions with his father have been somewhat strained. I
am told that at maneuvers he expects far too much from
his men and horses, though his pleasant mariners and his
joking way make him very popular. He may, of course,
prove the Frederick the Great of the campaign should
it last sufficiently long for him to gain the proper ex-
perience.

THE NAVY

IN 1848 the German Confederation was at war with
Denmark on account of Schleswig-Holstein. The na-
tional parliament voted six million thalers for the crea-
tion of a fleet ; it might as well have voted sixty millions
as far as the possibility of collecting it in such disordered
circumstances was concerned. But on June fourth,
1849, a squadron of three steamships, the Barbarossa,
the Hamburg and the Liibeck did set out from the
mouth of the Elbe, with decks cleared for action. The
admiral was a Saxon, Rudolph Bromme. It was known
that a Danish corvette was becalmed in the neighborhood
of Helgoland. She was sighted and some shots had
already been sent through her rigging, when suddenly
from another direction, from Helgoland itself, then a
British possession, a shot was fired. It signified that
the ships were within the three-mile limit over which then
and now a state's sovereignty extended, and that Eng-
land was forbidding the fray. The "fleet" complied
with the order and Lord Palmerston took occasion to
send a diplomatic note to the German Confederation

THE NAVY 65

stating that ships had been seen in the North Sea flying
a black-red-gold flag and conducting themselves as war-
ships; that England would not recognize such ships with
a black-red-gold flag as war-ships, but would treat them,
if need be, as pirates.

England has more or less preserved this attitude to
the present day and has been righteously indignant
whenever Germany increased her fleet. A first lord of
the admiralty once publicly declared that Britain's rule
of the sea was part of the common treasure of mankind
and that England could never endure that another
power should be able to weaken her political influence
by exerting naval pressure. Such a position, he said,
would unquestionably lead to war.

The attempts to weld Germany into a nation having
failed, the fleet was put up at auction and sold in 1852.
The state of Prussia, however, which was one of the
purchasers, had by this time started her own fleet and
soon began to build the harbor in the Jadebucht, which
is now called Wilhelmshaven. One of the royal princes,
Adalbert, was made admiral and furthered the cause of
the fleet in every way. Himself an intrepid leader, he
was wounded in an encounter with Morocco pirates, who
fired on one of the small boats of the Danzig. In 1863,
however, the fleet consisted of but four corvette cruisers,
the Arkona, Gazelle and Vineta, which had each twenty-

66 GERMANY'S FIGHTING MACHINE

eight cannon, and the Nymplie, which had but seventeen.
Add to these twenty-one cannon boats, four of which
carried three cannon, the rest but two. In 1867 the
Prussian fleet merged in that of the North German
Confederation, which in turn, in 1871, merged into that
of the new German Empire.

In the war with France the German fleet played no
role whatever, there being but five ironclads in all, two
of them small coast defenders, to oppose to France's
fifty-five. There were but one or two insignificant en-
counters between small single ships — one between the
Grille and the Hirondelle in the Baltic, and one be-
tween the Meteor., whose whole crew numbered sixty-
three, and the French despatch-boat Bouvet, with
eighty-three. The two had come upon each other in
the harbor of Havana and then tried conclusions on the
high seas. But the German victories on land had been
so quick and decisive that the fleet as a whole never came
into action.

Even the successful outcome of the war did not spur
Germany on to build up a strong navy. A general, not
a seaman, was made chief of the admiralty and, al-
though Von Stosch brought in a building plan accord-
ing to which the navy, by 1882, would have had four-
teen large ironclads, seven monitors, twenty cruisers
and twenty-eight torpedo-boats, it was carried out only

THE NAVY 67

in part. Stosch deserves credit, however, for insisting
that Germany should build all her own ships. The sink-
ing of the Grosse Kurfiirst in 1879, which was run into
by one of her own sister ships, was a great calamity for
the navy, and the loss of her two hundred sixty-five
officers and men caused wide-spread grief.

Caprivi, the later chancellor, followed Von Stosch in
1883 as head of the admiralty. He was conscientious,
but, it would seem, altogether without fruitful ideas.
He placed all his hopes in the torpedo-boat, and from
1883 to 1887 not a single battle-ship was built. It was
not so much to be credited to Caprivi, but to a young
officer, Von Tirpitz, now grand admiral and state sec-
retary for the navy office, that the German torpedo-
boat fleet became the best in the world. Tirpitz made a
new weapon of it, one that could be used not merely for
coast-defense, but also for fighting on the high seas.
But the fact remains that the torpedo-boat under Ca-
privi's regime was greatly overestimated and that its
usefulness has more and more been checked by new in-
ventions— search-lights, Gatling guns, torpedo-boat-
destroyers and the like.

Toward the end of his term indeed Caprivi began to
see the importance of a strong fleet and the idea gained
ground that "a navy which has its center of gravity on
or near shore is not worthy of the name." In 1887 was

68 GERMANY'S FIGHTING MACHINE

begun the Kaiser Wilhelm canal between the Baltic and
the North Sea, which enables the one fleet to operate in
both waters without fear of being intercepted. Mean-
while Germany had started on her career as a colonial
power, having acquired by purchase and by treaty tracts
in Africa and islands in the Pacific Ocean more than
twice the size of her possessions in Europe. Some of
her little cruisers and cannon boats had even seen service
against unruly natives. The Reichstag, however, showed
little interest in the government's colonial policy and
was not to be won for the building of large war-ships.

A change came soon after the accession of the present
emperor, William II. One of his first acts was to reor-
ganize the whole naval system, separating the adminis-
trative part from the purely military. At present Ad-
miral von Tirpitz is at the head of the former and Prince
Henry of Prussia, subject to the emperor's own com-
mands, of the latter. Four great battle-ships , all of the
Brandenburg class, were begun in 1889. England re-
sponded by ordering ten new battle-ships, but in 1890,
by ceding Helgoland in return for a correction of
boundaries in East Africa, she gave Germany an ad-
vantage worth fifty dreadnaughts. And almost before
there was any tangible fleet at all Germany was at work
scientifically, learning both by theory and by practise
how a fleet should be managed and maneuvered.

THE NAVY 69

"How few these ships were," writes a vice admiral, "and how
little in accord with modern warfare on the high seas, we all know.
Imagination often had to substitute what was lacking. School-ships,
still with all their old full rigging, represented ironclads; torpedo-
boats served as cruisers, and the Mars, built to be an artillery train-
ing-ship, acted as flag-ship. In those next few years we went
through a period which — we can say it without boasting — is unique
in the history of fleets. Not but that we made mistakes — much that
then seemed to us indubitably right has since been superseded — but
the German fleet, which had fewer and less available ships than
many other countries, has outdistanced them all in tactical develop-
ment. . . . The stake, it is true, became greater as ships repre-
senting a capital of millions and carrying hundreds of men took the
place of the little boats, but the method remained the same. Com-
mander and crew, by progressing from easier to more difficult and
more warlike maneuvers, achieved that feeling of security which is
not a foolish scorn of danger but the knowledge of power to cope
with it. That is the state of mind which makes for success in war
and which enables one to win all by risking all."

The fleet legislation of 1898 for the first time looked
ahead and established rules as to the future number of
ships and the time-limit within which they should be
built, and also laid down principles as to the tasks that
the fleet was intended to accomplish. Two squadrons,
of eight battle-ships each, were to be in constant readi-
ness and were to have a flag-ship at their head. Six large
and sixteen small cruisers were to act as scouts, three
large and ten small cruisers as a "foreign fleet"; two
battle-ships, three large cruisers and four small ones
were to form the reserve, and the whole reorganization

70 GERMANY'S FIGHTING MACHINE

was to be completed in six years — that is, by 1904. It
had heretofore been provided that in case of war each
ship should give up half of its trained men as a nucleus
for the new crews of the reserve ships. This greatly
weakened the fighting power of the ships at the crucial
moment, and the legislation of 1898 abolished the com-
pulsion for one at least of the two squadrons.

Between 1898 and 1900 came events which greatly
disquieted Germany: the Spanish- American and Boer
Wars and disturbances in Samoa. Off Manila there
were amenities between the German and American ad-
mirals which might have ended more creditably for the
former had he been able to display more force. The
legislation of 1900 was influenced by all these factors
and has a wider perspective than any that had gone
before. The preamble declared that "Germany must
have a battle-fleet so strong that even for the most pow-
erful naval opponent a war is connected with such dan-
gers that that opponent's own position as a power may
be impaired." And further: "For this purpose it is not
imperative that the German battle-fleet be as strong as
that of the greatest maritime power, for, as a rule, a
great maritime power will not be in a position to concen-
trate its whole fighting force against us. But even
though it should succeed in opposing us with greatly
superior forces the subjection of a strong German fleet

THE NAVY 71

would so weaken an enemy that, in spite of any victory
he may win, his fleet will no longer be sufficiently power-
ful to assure his own predominant position." "For the
first time," writes Mittler, "the so-called risk idea which
was henceforth to be a determining factor in our fleet
development was clearly expressed."

The legislation of 1900 amounted to a doubling of the
fleet provided for only two years previously. Seventeen
battle-ships, four large cruisers and sixteen small cruis-
ers were to be in constant readiness, while exactly as
many more ships of each of the three types were to be
kept, partially manned, in reserve. In 1906, in addition
to a number of submarines, six cruisers for the "foreign
squadron" were provided for, and it was voted to raise
the number of torpedo-boats and also to provide auto-
matically for their renewal, the life of a torpedo-boat
being estimated at twelve years. This meant that twelve
torpedo-boats would have to be built each year. Eng-
land's example in building dreadnaughts necessitated
greatly raising the appropriation for battle-ships and
also influenced the legislation of 1908, by which the
normal life of a battle-ship was declared reduced from
twenty-five to twenty years. The legislation of 1912,
finally, increased the number of active battle-ships by
eight, of large cruisers by four and of small cruisers by
six, not to mention that the number of submarines is to

72 GERMANY'S FIGHTING MACHINE

be brought up to seventy-two, fifty-four of which are
to be always ready for service. But as the period for
finishing all the new ships is 1920 they will play little
part in the present war. The reserve ships, of course,
will all now be called into action.

To resume, then, and to be more specific, the actual
German fleet, counting ships expected to be ready in the
course of 1914, numbers thirty-eight ships of the line,
fourteen armored cruisers, thirty-eight protected cruis-
ers, two hundred twenty- four torpedo-boats and thirty
submarines. There are no torpedo-boat-destroyers as
in other navies, the small cruisers being supposed to
take their place. The battle-ships arc ranged in classes.
There are three of the "King class" (the Konig, the
Grosser Kurfiirst and the Markgraf), which have a
displacement of nearly 26,000 tons and are equipped
with every possible modern improvement, such as net
protection against torpedoes, turbine engines, provision
for oil-fuel, torpedo tubes, etc. It is from these mon-
sters, of which each carries ten of the largest guns, not
to speak of the smaller ones, that we shall probably hear
most in the course of the war, though not perhaps in the
beginning, as they are not fully completed. They are
to be joined in 1915 by a sister-ship, the Kronprinz.

The Konig class is to be larger in dimension, in
horse-power and in displacement, though not in speed or

H. M. Ship Seydlitz in Dry-Dock

Signaling on Submarine

THE XAVY 73

armament than the Kaiser class, of which there are five
ships: The Kaiser, the Kaiserin, the Friedrich der
Grosse, the Prinzregent Luitpold and the Konig Al-
bert. Next come the Helgoland class (Helgoland,, Ost-
friesland, Thiiringen, Oldenburg) and the Nassau class
(Nassau, Westfalen, Rheinland, Posen) after which,
with the Deutschland class (13,200 tons), we are out of
the region of the dreadnaughts.

There is a dreadnaught cruiser, the Derfflinger, just
ready, with a greater displacement (28,000 tons), and
of course, with far greater speed than any of the battle-
ships. Xext comes the Seydlitz (25,000 tons), then the
Moltke and the Goeben (23,000 tons), and the Von der
Tann (19,500 tons). The Goeben has already been
practically captured, as has also the Breslau (4,550
tons) . They are now in the Dardanelles, and the Turk-
ish government is considering their purchase. Twenty-
three of the protected cruisers bear the names of Ger-
man cities (like the Breslau , Colberg, Dresden, Konigs-
berg), while the rest for the most part have such names
as the Gazelle, the Medusa, the Niobe, the Undine.

Some fifteen of the largest and best-known passen-
ger ships of the Hamburg and Bremen lines were to
have served as auxiliary cruisers, but a number of these
now are in foreign ports and far from the needed pro-
tection of their fleets. It remains to be seen what use

74 GERMANY'S FIGHTING MACHINE

will be made of the Imperator, which is still at Cuxhaven
or Hamburg.

In concluding our list of ships in the German navy it
may interest Americans to know that there is one called
the Alice Roosevelt. It is not likely to influence the
progress of the war or even to come into action. Its
special title is Stations jaclit, and it is at the service of the
general inspector of the navy, Prince Henry of Prussia.

Germany's ally, Austria, although in May, 1914, she
appropriated more than 400,000,000 kronen for her
fleet, makes at present a very weak showing. She has
fifteen ships of the line, of which three are dread-
naughts, two armored cruisers and seven protected
cruisers.

England, Germany's chief naval opponent, has sixty-
three ships of the line as compared to her own thirty-
eight, and of these twenty- four are dreadnaughts, as
compared to seventeen. England has forty-four ar-
mored cruisers, of which ten are dreadnaughts; Ger-
many has but fourteen armored cruisers, and but five of
them are dreadnaughts. In protected cruisers the ratio
is still more in England's favor, while with torpedo-
boats Germany is comparatively well provided — one
hundred fifty-four as against one hundred ninety. It
may be mentioned here, as a bit of interesting history,

THE NAVY 75

that the majority of great naval victories have been won
over numerically superior fleets.

France has ten dreadnaught battle-ships, on paper,
but no dreadnaught cruisers, and is said to have had
difficulty in officering the ships that she has. Moreover,
of the ten dreadnaughts six are only what are called
half-dreadnaughts and only three of the others are ready
for service. Russia is practically without a fleet, though
she has four battle-ships and fourteen cruisers in the
Baltic and four battle-ships and two cruisers in the
Black Sea. Next year she expects to have ready for
use in the Baltic four new dreadnaughts.

Naval warfare has been so far from our thoughts
these many years, its terms have become so unfamiliar
that it is worth dwelling for a while on the different
types of ships and showing their special uses and their
special tasks in battle.

Most important of all, with their supremacy unas-
sailed by any of the newly invented types, are the bat-
tle-ships or ships of the line. They are called of the
line because that is their natural position in battle, the
position that renders the fire of their guns most effect-
ive. This does not mean that their bows are to be all in
a line, though that position may sometimes have to be
adopted; but rather that they are to string out, one be-

76 GERMANY'S FIGHTING MACHINE

hind the other at stated intervals, so as to be able to fire
a vast broadside often miles in length. It may be that
the line must be slanting or again that the position
must be constantly changed as new exigencies arise.
The ruling idea, of course, is to strike the right bal-
ance between the amount of surface presented as a
target for the enemy's guns and the ability to keep up
the most effective running fire. All this is diligently
practised in time of peace in the so-called maneuvers.
The utmost exactness of calculation is required, for the
nearer together the ships the more effective is their fire ;
indeed the great distinction between modern naval en-
counters and those of former times lies in this team
work, if we may call it so. The great dreadnaughts,
with their turbine engines and carefully adjusted steer-
ing apparatus, are much more manageable and can be
brought much closer to one another than was the case
with old-fashioned battle-ships. The distance between the
bow of one ship and the stern of the next one is reckoned
in practise at a hundred yards or less ; one can see what
an advantage it is to have the eight ships of a squadron
all of about the same size and speed. This idea has been
carried so far in the German fleet that, even after the
superiority of the turbine engine had been demonstrated
the ships required to complete a squadron were built in
the old style. Single encounters like those which make

For Raising Sunken Submarines

The Second Squadron Passing the Friedrichsort Light

H. M. Cruiser Breslau

H. M. Royal Yacht Hohenzollern with His Majesty on Board in the Lock at Kiel

THE XAVY 77

up such thrilling pages in history are not likely often
to occur again, and if they do, will not come to board-
ings and to hand-to-hand conflicts.

The range at which the great naval battles of the
future will be fought will be very great, all the way
up to ten thousand yards. The great guns can easily
shoot that distance, while a reason for not coming nearer
until, at least, the heavy ammunition is gone, is that at
that range each fleet will be practically safe from the
torpedoes of the other. The German fleet often prac-
tises at that range, firing at a moving target which is
dragged along by another boat. On each modern gun
is a telescope, and there are instruments for determining
the distance at any given moment, as well as compli-
cated adjustments for sighting and aiming. The pro-
jectiles used in the biggest guns weigh each nearly a
ton and cost well up into the thousands, so every pre-
caution is taken not to waste them. We can no longer
speak of a cannon-ball, for the modern charges are
cylindrical, pointed and filled with explosives so as to
inflict the utmost damage for the money. Experience
has shown that at very close range they will pass through
blocks of steel more than a yard thick !

The bore of the greatest guns in the German navy has
hitherto been a little over thirty centimeters, but is fast
reaching the forty centimeter mark ; the guns themselves

78 GERMANY'S FIGHTING MACHINE

are from forty-five to fifty-eight feet long and weigh
correspondingly. The best are from the foundries of
Krupp, who, when he died, left his daughter the richest
woman in Germany. The Krupps have a special steel
of the utmost toughness and resistance. The gun-
barrel is made of a single block, which is regularly ex-
cavated or bored; it is then protected by innumerable
rings, which are put on when red-hot, and sit firmly ever
after. The "kick" of the gun has been entirely elimi-
nated by an ingenious contrivance. Altogether the can-
non of to-day have become so complicated and so per-
fect as instruments that it takes longer to manufacture
them than it does to construct the ship, and the English
navy gives its orders for them about six months before
even the keel is laid. And the life of such a gun is short.
It is said that some of the guns on the new English,
Japanese and Italian ships will be useless after they
have fired eighty shots; on the American, French and
German after from one hundred and fifty to two hun-
dred. The difference lies in the construction of the gun-
barrel, and there are controversies and rivalries over
which methods are the best, just as there are over almost
everything else that pertains to warfare: over the best
shells, the best powder, the best mechanical contrivances
for loading, for getting the range, etc. Dreadnaughts
have scarcely yet been tried in actual warfare, and the

THE NAVY 79

nation that has made mistakes in theory may live to rue
them bitterly in practise.

The guns are placed, two and two, in turrets on the
battle-ships, and can be turned in any direction; if need
be they can fire a whole broadside ; while, as two turrets
are elevated above the rest, a volley can be fired of four
guns direct from the bow or stern. The turrets are ar-
mored with tough hard steel and their surface is curved
so that a shot will glance off. The King and the
Kaiser classes carry ten great guns, the Helgoland
and Nassau classes even twelve, but the latter are no
more effective, as they have not the two elevated turrets
for shooting over the other guns. Some of the new
French and American ships are to have three and even
four guns to a turret, but the German navy is conserva-
tive enough not to wish to try the experiment.

Theoretically at least a great dreadnaught is almost
unsinkable. Not only is its hull divided into a great
number of cells and compartments but many of the cells
themselves are armored, so that even if a torpedo pene-
trates to them it will not have things all its own way.
All vulnerable places, too, are heavily armored with
plates that extend away below the water line; while the
powder magazines and torpedo tubes are well down in
the depths of the ship.

It is the heavy armament that has conditioned the size

of the ships, for they have few other advantages than
the ability to carry the extra weight, and they have in-
creased the cost of navies enormously. The appropria-
tions of eight great powers for 1914-1915 come to not
far from three billion five hundred million marks, Eng-
land leading with more than one billion. And the ex-
penses do not cease with the building of the ships, for
docks, dry docks, canals, etc., have to be enlarged ac-
cordingly. The Kaiser Wilhelm canal, built between
the years 1887 and 1895, at a cost of one hundred fifty-
six million marks, had already outgrown its usefulness
ten years after its opening. Its widening, which will
not be fully completed until 1915, is to cost two hun-
dred twenty-three millions in addition.

We have thus far spoken only of ships of the line,
and, although we shall have to return to them in a mo-
ment, a few words must first be said as to the use of the
other categories of ships in actual warfare. Armored
cruisers in themselves are nothing new. England has
forty-four of them, France nineteen, Japan fifteen and
Germany and the United States each fourteen. But
great armored battle-cruisers have existed only since
1907 and are possessed as yet by only three powers:
England has ten; Germany has, or had, five (for the
Goeben is out of the running) , and Japan has two.

The big battle-cruiser is as long as a battle-ship, or

THE NAVY 81

even longer; it, also, is called a dreadnaught. It has
guns as large, but fewer of them ; eight instead of ten.
Where, then, is the difference? The difference is in the
lines, which are long and slender, like those of a yacht,
and in the speed, which is from twenty-eight to thirty
knots instead of twenty-two or twenty-three. The
cruiser has been described as a sort of naval cavalry that
can fly to any weak point of the enemy, can chase a
single ship or can outflank a line of ships, bring them
between two fires, thus deciding the battle. The cruis-
ers can also fight each other. A new instrument of
war has thus been introduced that may, after all, once
more make naval contests thrilling and dramatic instead
of being mere pounding competitions.

The small cruiser, in contradistinction to the large
armored one, has but a light iron belt and carries only
light guns and deck torpedo tubes. Its purpose is not
to engage in battle, unless it be with a torpedo-boat, but
rather to avoid it. It combines the qualities of scout
and of torpedo-boat-destroyer, which latter type is alto-
gether lacking in the German navy. Its chief quality
is swiftness, and a swarm of small cruisers accompanies
the fleet when it puts to sea, darting here and there to
make sure that none of the much-dreaded little enemies
is approaching.

Of large torpedo-boats the German fleet has one hun-

82 GERMANY'S FIGHTING MACHINE

dred fifty-four, all of its own special type. The value
of the type has at times been overestimated, at times
underestimated, but the recent gains in speed and in sea-
worthiness have made it no contemptible adversary.
Practically its only weapon is the torpedo, for project-
ing which it carries four tubes on deck; its small guns
are merely for use against other torpedo-boats. Its
chief defense is its extreme swiftness, for some of the
boats have a speed of thirty-eight miles an hour. It
can turn, too, incredibly quickly, for it has a rudder in
the bow as well as in the stern. It is unarmored, but is
painted black for its protection. For it is a creature of
the night, stealing up in the darkness with its deadly
weapon and scarcely ever exposing itself to the enemy's
guns by the light of day. It has one enemy, to be
dreaded above all others, the search-light.

There are hundreds of the little black devils in the
navy, and they have every sort of trick for concealment
and escape. By running very swiftly they can keep the
smoke from rising vertically from their funnels and
thus betraying their presence. They often go forth in
flotillas and if an enemy start to chase them they scatter,
having previously arranged where they are to meet
again. They come bow on to the ship they mean to
injure, for the distance between them will then increase
more rapidly. If brought to bay a torpedo-boat turns

Submarine Fleet in Harbor at Kiel

Armored Cruiser Moltke

THE NAVY 83

its own search-light on the commander of the other ves-
sel and tries to blind him with its glare. It is a risky
business, that of torpedo-boat commander, and requires
men of the very highest training and courage. The
reason there are such numbers of the little craft is that
many are sure to go to the bottom in the course of a
campaign. Germany expects that her flotilla will be of
great help in a war with England, for when a torpedo
hits the damage is apt to be severe. Dynamite is mild
compared to the new melanite and lyddite that are used
in charging.

If the torpedo-boat is a fiend that works mainly at
night, its sister, the submarine, works only by day. If
the submarine has not, as was at one time expected, com-
pletely revolutionized naval warfare, it has at least so
far asserted itself that it can never be left wholly out of
the reckoning. Its improvement has kept pace with
that of the torpedo-boat in stability, in size and in man-
ageableness. The newest boats have a displacement of
a thousand tons, and long sea voyages are now possible.
Germany has far fewer torpedo-boats than has Eng-
land, but claims that hers are much stronger and much
better adapted for service in rough weather and on the
high seas.

When there is no enemy in the immediate vicinity the
submarine rides the waves like any other boat; when

84 GERMANY'S FIGHTING MACHINE

there is danger she dives like a duck. Just before firing
her torpedo she comes to the surface for an instant to
get one last good look. She is helpless at that moment,
of course, but trusts to not being seen in time. When
under water her speed is only about ten miles an hour,
as the pressure is very great; on the surface she can
travel about sixteen. Her slowness is a disadvantage,
for she can only lurk for and intercept a fleet, not pur-
sue and overtake it. She labors under another disad-
vantage, too, for she has to carry two motors and can
not use the same one above and under water. Why?
Because the one is an oil motor and generates gases
which would be fatal when all outlets are closed. The
other is run by an electric storage battery, the filling of
which requires time and patience.

How can the submarine communicate with its own
fleet? It has wireless telegraphy and also deep-water
signals, but these do not work so well as might be de-
sired. It has one other connection with the visible world
as wonderful as anything described by Jules Verne in
his Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, the peri-
scope, or literally the "looker round." I can not do bet-
ter than describe it in the words of a naval officer, Count
Ernest zu Reventlow :

Roughly speaking, the apparatus consists in this: If
the boat is under water and yet wishes to see what is

THE NAVY 85

going on above, it pushes up a long thin pipe until the
surface is reached and a little beyond. At the farther
end of this pipe is a contrivance with glass prisms, or
mirrors and lenses. This throws down the image re-
flected from the surface of the water, through the ver-
tical pipe, into the interior of the boat. The image is
caught on a plate and the commander of the submarine,
although he may be several yards under water, can see
everything that is floating and happening on the sur-
face and consequently can make his attack with the sole
guidance of this image and steer the boat until it is at
the right distance for firing the torpedo.

It sounds like magic, and indeed the witches were not
in it when it comes to the achievements of modern sci-
ence. But Reventlow has to confess that in practise the
periscope is not so wonderful as it sounds in theory.
The splashing of the salt water, unless the sea be per-
fectly calm, which it seldom is, soon dims and even
effaces the image. It was long before the inventors
could bring the periscope to reflect more than a small
section of the horizon, but that difficulty seems to have
been overcome.

It is possible, with map, clock and compass, to take
reckonings and keep on a course even when deep down
under water. Deeper than ninety feet the submarine
seldom goes. It has found a new and unexpected enemy

86 GERMANY'S FIGHTING MACHINE

in the air-ship or aeroplane, for it is a well-known fact
that from a height on a clear day, at least, you can see
very far into the water. But what, one will ask, can
the aeroplane do about it even if it sights a submarine
far down beneath the surface? Projectiles would not
be likely to do much damage. At the same time it can
warn ships and can pursue and worry the submarine.

That the latter is not a perfect instrument goes with-
out saying; indeed, when it darts about blindly it be-
comes a menace to its own ships. Its arrangements are
so complicated, too, with all the letting in and out of
water, the diving and coming up, the changing of mo-
tors and providing artificial air that things are very apt
to go wrong. The service is extremely exhausting for
the men and extremely dangerous.

Yet all the same the value of submarines is universally
acknowledged and every great navy has them. They
will probably prove useful in planting that new instru-
ment of destruction, the floating mine, about which a
few words must be said here: "It is to be presumed,"
writes Reventlow, "that in the next naval war [how lit-
tle he dreamed in November, 1913, that that war was so
close at hand!] mines will play an important part not
merely in coast defense but also in sea fights as a weapon
with the same justification as artillery and torpedoes and
that their use will materially influence the tactics to be

A Submarine Flotilla

Torpedo Boat

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A Submarine About to Dive

THE NAVY 87

employed." As such a weapon of attack mines were
first used in the Japanese-Russian War.

A mine, as the reader probably knows, is a cask filled
with high explosives and fastened by means of weights
and anchors so that it floats some feet below the surface.
Mines can be planted in fields, as it were, by torpedo-
boats or submarine and then a hostile fleet can be lured
or chased in among them. The North Sea, as we know,
is at present thickly strewn with them and fatal results
have already been chronicled. Air-ships and aeroplanes
can help by finding the whereabouts of the hostile fleet
and designating by wireless the spots where the mines
should be planted.

Air-ships and aeroplanes will possibly find their chief
use as coast-defenders. They need refuges to which
they can retire, which limits their use on the high seas.
But along the shore they can scout for hostile ships and
also can detect submarines and mines. They can throw
down explosives and, if they are near enough to the
enemy's harbors, can destroy docks and demoralize ship-
ping. Already there is talk of specially armored decks
and of great iron grills for protecting the openings of
funnels.

More than six months ago a thoughtful German,
Rudolf Troetsch, wrote a book called Germany's Fleet

88 GERMANY'S FIGHTING MACHINE

in the Decisive Struggle, in which he weighs the differ-
ent tasks the fleet will be called upon to perform in case
of war, and comes ever and again to the conclusion that
a battle on the high seas is the only possible option — a
battle im grossen Stile, in the grand style. Even if the
enemy's fleet is not conquered it can be greatly weak-
ened and strategy and tactics will go far to make up for
want of numbers.

Troetsch begins by showing the different methods an
enemy will be likely to pursue ; and one sees throughout
that he has England in mind. First of all will corne-
as has already happened — the so-called cruiser war or
attempt to destroy the country's commerce by snapping
up her merchant ships. This can eventually end the war
by the starvation process ; that is, by cutting off all food
and other supplies. According to the Paris interna-
tional agreement of 1856 there shall be no privateering,
which means that individuals may not fit out ships and
take prizes, but does not mean that the property of indi-
viduals, if they are subjects of one or other of the war-
ring powers, may not be seized. Prizes of war may
either be towed into the nearest port or, after the crews
and passengers have been taken off, may be sent to the
bottom with all their cargo. To be effective, however,
this method of warfare must be methodically pursued,
which means regularly employing a force of swift cruis-

THE NAVY 89

ers. The method had its warm advocates in naval circles,
especially in France about thirty years ago. There is
a strong feeling at present that the game is not worth
the candle and that there are other tasks for the cruisers
to perform which are of more importance. For a coun-
try which has few foreign coaling stations into which
the prizes can be towed but very little is to be gained;
while a naval battle is greatly to be preferred to having
an enemy try these tactics.

Another method that may be applied against Ger-
many is the blockading of her North Sea coast. A
blockade, according to the Paris declaration of 1850
and again according to the London conference of 1908,
must be effective in order to be binding ; a country may
not, in other words, simply declare an enemy's coasts in
a state of blockade, but must have enough ships there to
enforce the regulations. A successful blockade hinders
even neutral ships from landing and is the best way of
preventing the entry of contraband of war and of para-
lyzing all commerce. The form of Germany's coast line
fairly invites to a blockade, much more than do the
coasts either of England or France. A line drawn from
Holland to Denmark would form the hypothenuse of a
triangle including the mouths of Germany's chief rivers,
her main seaports as well as all her North Sea islands.
The Baltic, too, could be easily shut off from the ocean,

90 GERMANY'S FIGHTING MACHINE

and with the enemy's ships all bottled up there would be
no fear of a descent on the coasts of England.

This sounds well in theory, but in practise the dif-
ficulties will be well-nigh insuperable. Those who know
the coast will remember the miles and miles of shallows
—the so-called Wattenmeer so difficult to navigate. In
time of \var all lighthouses and buoys are removed and,
if they approach the shore, the English ships will in-
evitably run aground, while the German torpedo-boats
and submarines will be in their very element. Floating
mines, too, will get in their deadly wrork, as will also the
strings of fixed mines which are ignited not by percus-
sion but by means of an electric current controlled from
the shore. The German fleet can retire well up the
great streams and menace the enemy there; while it
must not be forgotten that the great cannon of the coast
defenses can shoot fifteen kilometers (nine and three-
eighths miles ) or more. Finally the islands in the neigh-
borhood, notably Borkum and Wangerood, are fortified,
and last but not least, there is Helgoland far out in the
sea. A whole fleet could not take this Gibraltar of the
North. The rocky walls are very hard ; indeed, with true
German thoroughness, they have been tested to see if
they would successfully withstand bombardment. Un-
der their shelter a harbor for torpedo-boats and subma
rines has been built at a cost of thirty million marks.

THE NAVY 91

From here they can issue forth and here, protected from
afar by thie great guns, they can take refuge and form
new projects.

Troetsch considers it more than likely that England
will proceed to a blockade, but a blockade not in the nar-
row but in a broader sense. One objection to the nar-
rower blockade would be that her naval bases, necessary
for repairs, fuel and ammunition, would be very far
away. But this can be obviated if the blockading line
begin somewhere between Dover and Calais, extend
along the east coast of Scotland, with bases at Rosyth
and Scapa Flow, and end near the southernmost point
of Norway, Cape Lindesnaes. This would shut every
exit from the North Sea to the Atlantic and at the same
time encircle all the exits from the Baltic: the Skager
Rak and Cattegat and the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal. Here
England could carry on what is known as an "observa-
tion blockade," biding her time to fall upon the enemy's
fleet.

The great disadvantage is that the blockading line
will have to be so very long. The surface of the North
Sea is about equal to that of the whole German Empire,
and such a line as we have traced would extend for two
hundred fifty or three hundred miles. It is a question
if even England's enormous fleet can spare the requisite
number of ships. Such a blockading fleet consists not

92 GERMANY'S FIGHTING MACHINE

only of a long chain of vessels close together but also of
a supporting fleet and, behind that, of the real battle
squadrons. The whole force must be nearly double that
of the enemy, as it operates on a much broader line. The
foggy stormy weather that is apt to prevail in the North
Sea will also render the blockade less efficient.

Germany is likely to attempt to break it and to bring
about a great naval battle at the earliest opportunity.
But that opportunity may not come so very soon. Re-
ventlow, speaking indeed of a hypothetical war, declares
that such a blockade may last a year or longer. Ger-
many has too much at stake to risk her small but excel-
lent fleet before the tactical moment has come. Will
her Zeppelins help her to victory? That is the question
that all are asking now. They are but fragile toys in
a stormy sea, but, with circumstances in their favor, may
achieve wonderful results.

When it does come to the battle on the high seas into
which Germany will surely force England, we shall see
modern tactics put to their supreme test, for only by
tactical superiority can Germany hope to win. In an
old-fashioned battle in which the ships rushed at each
other pellmell, or in one in which the rival fleets simply
lie to and pound each other she would be sure to lose. A
modern battle is much more a game of skill in which the
victory is not to the strongest but to the cleverest.

THE NAVY 93

In a modern battle the ships are ever and always
moving. Not that the maneuvers are necessarily com-
plicated, but there goes on the whole time a constant
thrust and parry. There are different kinds of encoun-
ters. First there is the running fight, in which the two
fleets, the vessels one behind the other, run in the same
direction, firing all the while. Here the strength of the
ships, the power of the guns and the quickness of the
gunners play the decisive part. The more turrets, fun-
nels, engine-rooms and stearing gear put out of com-
mission, so much the better. The so-called passing
fight, where the fleets run not in the same but in oppo-
site directions, is apt to be preferred by a fleet that is
numerically weaker. The agony is less prolonged and
escape is easier. Then there is the circular fight, in
which the fleets are like great serpents trying to catch
one another's tails. The circular fight can follow directly
after the passing fight when the fleets have not been
seriously crippled.

But the crown and acme of all fleet maneuvers is the
so-called crossing of the T.

"The maneuver of the crossing of the T," writes Troetsch, "con-
sists in endeavoring to bring one's own line at right angles across the
head, or also across the tail, of the hostile line — of enfilading it, as
the expression goes, so that the opposing lines come into the relative
positions of the two bars of the Latin T. . . . Such a movement
renders it possible to concentrate the entire fire of one's own broad-

94 GERMANY'S FIGHTING MACHINE

sides on the ship that is at the head of the enemy's fleet. In this way
one increases the effectiveness of one's own fire to the very highest
degree, inasmuch as all the shots which go too far to one side will
strike the hinder ships of the long hostile line. The ships at its
head must gradually succumb to the concentrated fire, while one's
own line is exposed only to the guns in the opponent's bow and to the
fire of the few guns which can be pointed from the sides at such an
angle as still to reach the enfilading ships. This position signifies
for the fleet that succeeds in shoving itself across the head of the
enemy's line the most effective application of the principle of the
concentration of power, which is based on the endeavor always to
bring into play when attacking the enemy a greater number of guns
than he in his momentary position has at his disposal. If one can
open fire in this position it may prove of the greatest significance for
the whole battle. . . . There are cases where the advantage of
this position is gained by mere chance, as when the two fleets come
upon each other in that formation in thick or foggy weather. . . „
It is difficult to assume the position of crossing the T when the fight-
ing is already in progress. . . .

The fleet against which the crossing of the T is attempted can
seek to lessen its effect by various counter maneuvers. It can turn in
the same direction and take a parallel course with the enveloping
fleet, whereby if it be swift enough it has the advantage of being on
the inner or shorter line: the battle then becomes a simple running
fight, or it can simply turn and follow the tail of the hostile line or
engage with the head of the line in a passing fight."

We can even imagine the line of ships, the bow of
which has been crossed, executing a sort of dance with
its opponent in order to bring its broadsides into play
—the first ship turning to the right, the second to the
left, the third to the right again and so on until all are
opposite and parallel to the enemy.

THE NAVY 95

And so the war is on which brings Germany's fleet
and army into play — to the last man and to the last gun.
We have suddenly found ourselves in the midst of a
struggle which makes even the wars of Napoleon seem
trifling.

As many men are now engaged simultaneously as
were then called out in the course of years. And the
instruments of death are a hundred times more deadly.
From the skies above destruction rains down ; from sub-
terranean forts and from the depths of the sea it wells
up. The difference between hand labor and machinery
has been transmitted into terms of killing ; we have arti-
ficial earthquakes and eruptions.

How shall we name the war? The War of 1914? But
it may last on into the next year, and the next and the
next. As I know Germany she will never now submit
to being conquered unless the social democrats gain the
upper hand. And even then I am not sure that the social
democrats are prepared to draw the last consequences of
their long agitation against the imperial, or against any
national government. Our descendants may look back
on it as the Thousand Years' War, for one fails to see
how the passions now unchained can ever again be
calmed. And there are signs that we are at the begin-
ning of a colossal shoving around of races that will make
our children mock at the awe with which their fathers

96 GERMANY'S FIGHTING MACHINE

read of the so-called wandering of the nations. All the
Suevi and Allemanni and Goths, Vandals and Visigoths
that ever overran Gaul would have made but a few corps
in the great Teuton army that is now pressing into
France.

Russia, with her one hundred sixty millions, is likely
to claim a much vaster influence than she has yet had.
Napoleon would once have been willing to share Europe
with Czar Alexander; will some such partition enter
into the new treaty of peace? Will it perhaps be be-
tween Teuton and Slav and will England have to move
to Canada and France to Africa? I can not believe, in
any case, that Germany will succumb. She is reproached
now by sentimental ladies with having devoted such
serious study to the work of destruction. She devotes
serious study to everything that she attempts. Only re-
cently I was initiated into the splendid methods by which
she runs her labor-exchanges and also into the workings
of her prisons and penitentiaries. Everything is fore-
seen, everything provided for. And so it is with her
fighting force. Every single problem is attacked theo-
retically as well as practically, and in almost every re-
gard we other nations are but as untrained children to
her.

Once more, who is to blame for the horrible war? A
clever writer, such as we have for detective stories, would

THE NAVY 97

have little difficulty in convincingly foisting the guilt
on each of the great powers in succession. Austria is
to blame for her ultimatum to Servia, Russia for mo-
bilizing against Austria, France for entering the con-
flict when the matter did not concern her at all, Germany
for demanding Russian demobilization, England for
stabbing Germany in the back when she was already
struggling with enemies on either side, Japan for her
bumptious self-assertion.

It is the twilight of the gods. Is Germany the Wal-
halla that is to fall in ruins? Or is she merely about to
build a Walhalla that shall project over all other politi-
cal edifices ? The moment is a serious one for us Amer-
icans. Where shall we stand in the new order of things?
Will a Japan that has conquered a China, a Russia and
a Germany submit to American exclusion acts? Her
fleet already outnumbers ours in ships of all types ex-
cept ships of the line, and her naval appropriations are
progressing more steadily than our own. And when
Japan secures what she wishes from us, China will be
ready to make the same demands. It is a far cry since
Austria interpreted the five vowels in her favor: Alles
Erdreich ist Osterreich unterthan (all earthly kingdoms
are subject to Austria) . Which will be the next world-

power?

THE END

PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE
CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY

UA Henderson, Ernest Flagg
712 Germany's fighting

H4 machine
1914

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Full text of "Germany's fighting machine : her army, her navy, her airships, and why she arrayed them against the allied powers of Europe"

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